LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



SlielfvM-4- 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 



INSPIRED THROUGH 
SUFFERING 



BY 

Rev. DAVID O. MEARS, D. D. 

Author of ' 'Life of Edw. N. Kh'k, D.D.," " The Deathless Book^ ' ' 
''Oberlin Lectures^" etc. 



f 







FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 

New York Chicago Toronto 

Publishers of Evangelical Literature 







Copyright, 1895, 

by 

Fleming H. Revell Company. 



PREFATORY 

This volume is an essay to indicate the 
value of courage in the hard paths of Hfe. A 
great deal that goes by the name of comfort 
is mere sentiment. 

We have not limited the realm of sorrow to 
the death-chamber; living sorrows are some- 
times, perhaps always, hardest to bear. Bitter 
anguish cuts into manly hearts in every-day 
life. Hard times crowd upon the most de- 
serving. Deep anxiety plows its furrows in 
homes unmarked by crape. Hardships and 
sorrows are as varied as human experiences. 

Comfort is as much demanded in the battle 
of life as in the loneliness following the fin- 
ish of the fight. We need comfort almost 
more when hope alternates with fear than 
when the object of hope is gone ; in the sick- 

5 



6 PREFATORY 

chamber more than in the lonely room. The 
thoughts of these chapters take in the strong 
and the weak, the well and the sick, the 
struggling and the desolate. 

An ounce of comfort is worth tons of pity. 
Pity discourages ; comfort strengthens. Pity 
keeps hands off; comfort lifts up the trem- 
bling. Pity plays upon the feelings ; comfort 
gives impulse to the strength. Pity repels ; 
comfort wins. 

A central thought concerns the greatness 
of human nature enduring or patiently bear- 
ing hardships. Strength needs the testing- 
time to declare it. Elijah was never commis- 
sioned to sit under a juniper-tree and moan. 
Christ fainted under his cross, but was never 
faint in courage. In like manner it is not 
manly to give up the battle when meeting 
some defeat. The immortal spirit of man 
was never made to fret itself away under 
adversity. It was a poor prayer of Elijah, 
*' Take away my life.*' God has made us to 
rise above troubles; to make each one of 



PREFATORY 7 

these a stepping-stone to higher service. 
The lessons we learn make us stronger to 
help others. Sad experiences are severe 
teachers. 

That life only is worth living that is lived 
for others. What we suffer is no excuse for 
closing our eyes against others' sufferings. 
Because we are driven to a lonely experience 
we are not therefore to keep away from those 
who are lonely. Because death comes to any 
home it is not that its occupants shall be 
dead to others' needs. We learn, to teach. 
We get wisdom, to give. We find paths, to 
show to others. We are fashioned through 
sorrows and hardships and difficulties, to be 
wiser, stronger, and better neighbors and 
friends. We are inspired to inspire. Our 
sufferings are teachers as truly as the inspired 
Scriptures. 

God designs our troubles to make us larger 
and stronger. Christ was perfected through 
sufferings. Sufferers of the centuries have 
clung to him because of his being '' touched 



8 PREFATORY 

with the feeling of our infirmities.** What 
he was we in a measure must be : accessible 
to those who need our help. 

If these pages shall inspire the troubled 
and bereaved and struggling to larger pur- 
poses, the writer's aim will have been reached. 

Cleveland, Ohio, 
September, 1895. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. Greater than our Burdens ii 

II. The Immortal Life 35 

III. Spiritual Helps in Earthly Hindrances. 55 

IV. Patience 77 

V. Sympathy 95 

VI. Comfort 115 

VII. Inspired to Inspire 137 



I 

GREATER THAN OUR BURDENS 



II 



Man the personation of power. — Natur-al obstacles over- 
come. — Moral also. — Life, "labor and sorrow." — Moses' 
experience: he "endured." — Paul's testimony: "tribula- 
tions." — What his life-work cost him. — "Weariness and 
painfulness." — These men not pessimists. — These distin- 
guished men examples. 

Man stronger than his environment. — Burdens cannot 
crush. — Argument of Book of Job. — God has given us 
courage.— Life greater than its losses. — "Endurance" a 
quality of character. — We endure hard and disagreeable 
things, not the pleasant. 

Test of human strength seen in what it can endure. — 
Adversity, test of life. — Financial panic tests the merchant. 
— Christ's seeming defeat a conquest. — Man preeminent 
over his conditions. 

Surroundings no test of judgment ; John Brown, Huss, 
Savonarola, Stephen, Paul. — Grandeur of human power. 

Hardships and sorrows not removed by " endurance." — 
No two sorrows alike. — Each sorrow an individual burden. 
— Earthly limitations revealing human power. — Examples. 
— Hope depends upon what is unseen ; Moses, Jenny Lind. 
— Man made to live even without sympathy. — Can " sub- 
mit" and live. 

Endurance of burdens a product of something higher. — 
Seeing the invisible. — Hope inspires "endurance." — Its 
deeds. — Things "not seen," the eternal. — The "image of 
God." 



12 




GREATER THAN OUR BURDENS 

|AN is the personation of power. 
The scriptural record marks his 
preeminence : to subdue the earth 
and have dominion over every Hving thing. 
Even death is not defeat ; man is immortal. 
Human history records this power and 
dominion. Man builds roads over the Alps, 
and tunnels mountains for convenience. He 
spans broad rivers with cobwebs of steel, over 
which pass heaviest-loaded trains. He makes 
oceans his highways. He strings networks 
of wires over continents that shall communi- 
cate his wishes. He cables ocean-beds for 
use. He utilizes Niagara for power; and 
with this power stores the lightnings of the 
13 



14 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

clouds to drive his factories and to forge his 
machines. He makes clouds and rivers and 
mountains and oceans his servants. 

Dominion Hke this is not gained without 
toil, weariness, and cost; but these do not 
harm. Shall weariness of other kinds bring 
defeat? Are there not other ''costs** of 
success ? Is not man made to bear burdens, 
not to be crushed by them ? 

Without attempting any analysis just here 
of the common burdens in life, we notice the 
general fact. We borrow the testimony of 
two men whose success is beyond question. 
History, sacred and secular, records their 
names with reverence. Each speaks of the 
costs of his life, and of what life is. The one 
stood at the twilight of modern history ; the 
other In the dawning day of the Christian 
civilization. 

The first witness, in the Ninetieth Psalm, 
characterizes life as ''labor and sorrow.** This 
was Moses, the greatest name of humankind. 
Revelation exalts his rank in the immortal 



GREATER THAN OUR BURDENS 15 

life in the sublime reference, '' the song of 
Moses and of the Lamb." No other life has 
equaled his. 

Modern civiHzation finds its earliest ex- 
ponent in his teachings. His fame dims that 
of Abraham. He was the founder of the 
peculiar nation that has had its hand upon all 
governments. Grotius, that prodigy of learn- 
ing, attributes the laws of Attica to those of 
Moses. He is the predecessor of Blackstone. 
His wisdom infinitely exceeds that of Solon. 
He is the world's first historian. As eman- 
cipator, statesm.an, lawgiver, historian, Moses 
merits the declaration of Dean Milman : ''The 
Hebrew lawgiver has exercised a more ex- 
tensive and permanent influence over the des- 
tinies of mankind than any other individual 
in the annals of the world.** 

It was this preeminently successful charac- 
ter who wrote out of his own experience, and 
from observation, that human life, even under 
the most auspicious environment, is ''labor 
and sorrow.** The writer to the Hebrews 



16 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

makes one word describe him — he " en- 
dured." 

Recall a few facts. He was born poor. 
His life was saved from murder by the strat- 
agem of his mother. By a remarkable provi- 
dence, when he stood heir to the throne of 
the Pharaohs, he abandoned all claim to the 
palace. He chose ''to suffer affliction with 
the people of God." He rejected the ease 
and pleasures of royalty. He preferred *' the 
reproach of Christ " to '' the pleasures of 
Egypt." He bore the unending complaints 
and murmurings of the people in all his active 
career. Whether we look upon him at '* the 
back side of the desert " for forty years, or 
follow him during the extended wanderings, 
the conclusion is the same : '' labor and sor- 
row." Moses lost what the world prizes, and 
gained what it shuns. Is he a fair example 
among men ? 

The same experience was met by Paul. He 
did not really begin to live until he cast away 
what he had once prized. He became an out- 



GREATER THAN OUR BURDENS 17 

cast. His family deserted him ; more easily 
could he have mourned their death. He lost 
his enviable popularity in the great church of 
his fathers. He described his life as a continu- 
ance of ''perils." The recital baffles descrip- 
tion. He was whipped five times w^th thongs 
swung by the hands of Jews ; and the mad- 
ness of the whipper's heart gave full strength 
to every blow. He was stoned once ; and 
fanatical hatred made the bruises deep. 
Three classes of men did their best to kill 
him — robbers, his own countrymen, and 
heathen. His life in wilderness and city was 
imperiled. He knew what it meant to be 
hungry and cold. '' Weariness and painful- 
ness " were frequent burdens. Storms of the 
deep waters w^ere no greater perils than false 
brethren. Paul names his pathway '' tribu- 
lations.'* 

Thus these two greatest men of Scripture 
fame designate life as ''labor and sorrow" and 
"tribulations." Both were the furthest re- 
move from being pessimists. They abounded 



18 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

in hope. They were never cast down. Paul 
said of his tribulations, ''I glory in them/' 
Moses once almost gave way under the des- 
perate strain of his burdens, even praying 
that he might die. But the despondency 
was only for a moment; his magnificent 
earthly life was ended with a song of tri- 
umph under a seeming defeat. Burdens mul- 
tiply according as the work becomes greater. 
President Lincoln, during the war, probably 
suffered more than any other hundred men. 
We are not, therefore, saying that all men 
will have the amount of sorrow and tribula- 
tion that Moses and Paul knew, since all have 
not their responsibilities. It is not the amount 
that demands attention, but the fact. 

The principle toward which such examples 
point, and In which they are involved, is evi- 
dent: man is larger and stronger than his 
environment. No burden was ever heavy 
enough to crush manhood out. No sorrow 
was ever greater than the heart can bear. 
God never made a coward, nor has he any- 



GREATER THAN OUR BURDENS 19 

where held up as a model a nature that would 
break under sorrow. The whole Book of Job 
centers around this single test: that no afflic- 
tion or evil could crush him. Man is not a 
w^orm to be trodden down, but a child of 
God. He is made to have dominion, to put 
all things under his feet. The agonies of 
Gethsemane may fall with frightful weight, 
but they cannot crush him. The cross will 
hurt, but cannot harm. 

God has fibered us with courage, not with 
cowardice. '' Ye shall have tribulation," the 
Master said: ''but be of good cheer." He 
reminded his disciples of what they should 
suffer, but told them that their sorrow should 
be turned into joy. Physical pain may be- 
come torture ; but manhood does not die with 
the pain. Loss of earthly goods will produce 
regrets; but there is an existence that does 
not depend upon earthly sustenance. Loss 
of loved ones shrouds the house in darkness ; 
but the real life does not depend upon the 
beating of the pulse. There are living griefs 



20 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

far heavier than death ; these bring sad- 
ness, but they cannot kill. The seer of Pat- 
mos caught the vision of multitudes who 
had come *' out of great tribulation," not of 
those crushed by their burdens. Multitudes 
had become martyrs rather than surrender 
truth. Courage is the watchword of God to 
men. 

It is not the kind of hardship that demands 
the endurance. Lives of Moses and Paul and 
milHons upon milHons of others prove that 
endurance is a quality of character. What- 
ever Moses met he endured. 

The word '' endure '' refers to what is hard 
and disliked. We may patiently and lovingly 
endure those who hate us; but we never 
speak of enduring those we love. Christ 
endured the cross; it was hard. The word 
means more than patience. We must endure 
what we shall never like. Sorrows cut deep 
and are never pleasant. Paul was never 
pleased with his thorn in the flesh, and it was 
never intended he should be. God has given 



GREATER THAN OUR BURDENS 21 

US the capacity to endure what we cannot 
help. In this power man is a king. 

Notice just at this point that the test of 
human strength is seen in what it can endure, 
not in what it avoids. A small sail-boat 
might possibly cross the Atlantic from New 
York to Liverpool, provided there were no 
gales nor storms. This would not make it 
valuable for a winter's voyage. The strength 
of the suspension-bridge is measured by its 
weakest arch. The strength of the chain is 
just equal to its weakest link. 

In a sense this is true of human life. One 
may pass easily along when things are smooth ; 
yet the real test of strength is in hard times. 
All success depends upon endurance of hard- 
ships, not upon avoiding them. The sharper 
the financial panic the keener the test of the 
merchant's ability. The heavier the sorrow 
the severer the trial of manhood. Yet multi- 
tudes endure such a test. The world admires 
the heroism displayed in such a conflict. Men 
ask of one in financial trouble, '' Will he sue- 



22 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

ceed ? " The inquiry concerning those pass- 
ing through heavy affliction is, '' How do 
they bear it?" Harder yet the Hving sor- 
row, that neither wealth nor position can 
assuage; yet all admit the heroism of those 
enduring it. 

This is the severe way of reasoning to those 
whose hearts are breaking ; yet it recognizes 
the preeminence of man over his conditions. 
In a sense this is conquest. There were 
prophecy, admonition, and assurance in the 
words of Christ : '^ In the world ye shall have 
tribulation : but be of good cheer ; I have 
overcome the world.'' When he spoke the 
tramping of the soldiers under the leadership 
of Judas was already begun. The swaying 
of the lanterns and torches was in the direc- 
tion of Gethsemane, whither Jesus was accus- 
tomed to resort. While the moonbeams 
lighted up with glory the trees of Olivet, the 
darkness around him was to cover agony 
itself. 

It was in such an hour, under such condi- 



GREATER THAN OUR BURDENS 23 

tions, the Master said, '' I have conquered 
the world." Was this conquering — to be 
betrayed ; to be forsaken by the Twelve ; to 
be put to death? Was it conquering — to 
pass into Gethsemane, and to faint under the 
compelled burden of carrying his own cross 
up Calvary? The seeming paradox was the 
truth. Judas would succeed in deHvering 
him into the hands of his murderers ; but the 
infamous traitor must confess, *' I have shed 
innocent blood/* Peter would deny him 
with oaths, but before the first gray Hght of 
the morning he would bitterly weep. Pilate 
would try to wash his hands of their stains, 
but in vain. 

We cannot always judge of men by their 
surroundings. John Brown conquered, though 
he was hung on the gallows ; appearances 
were against him, but he had won immortal 
fame. John Huss conquered, though his 
winding-sheet was the flames that ended his 
life. Savonarola conquered, though the last 
sounds driven into his hearing were the hisses 



24 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

and curses of men calling themselves priests 
of the most high God. Stephen conquered, 
though his fading sight was upon the frantic 
efforts of infuriated men to rid the earth of 
his presence. The step of Paul was that of 
a conqueror even when he was led outside 
the Ostian Gate. Men cannot kill the truth 
with axes, nor burn it to ashes and cinders. 
The truth cannot be destroyed by fagots, 
nor cut by steel that can be sharpened upon 
grindstones. 

The endurance of hardships and sorrows 
does not take them away nor make them 
more easy to carry. The home of those who 
once lived in affluence may at last be one of 
poverty. The wealth once owned may have 
shifted into the hands of sharpers. Disease 
may have paralyzed those whose ambitions 
are high, and life thus have become a burden. 
Sufferings in the family may have darkened 
all earthly pleasures by anxiety over the 
patient loved one in the enforced seclusion. 
The nights may increase the weariness be- 



GREATER THAN OUR BURDENS 25 

cause of the remembrance of some wanderer 
gone out from the home. Or the crape may- 
have been taken from the door, while the 
home that misses the voice whose daily words 
were richer than music may seem empty for- 
ever. 

The complexion of trouble is as varied as 
the leaves. No two sorrows are ever alike. 
The peculiar character, the strength of the 
love, the relations between the once loved 
and now gone — all enter into the peculiarity 
of each sorrow or hardship. No one is per- 
mitted to say to another, '' I have felt the 
very sorrow you are passing through.^' Sor- 
rows are as varied as have been the faces of 
our beloved. Our little child differs from 
every other child. Our parents differ from 
the parents of others. No two companions 
in life are alike. Since this is evident the 
sorrow of each heart must be as different 
from that of others as the personality has 
been. 

Each sorrow is thus an individual burden. 



26 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

Its anguish marks the degree of the love. 
The endurance of the burden indicates the 
ability of man above his environment. We 
need sympathy ; but even if sympathy were 
withheld, man can live without it. Friend- 
ship is a mighty help; but even though all 
friends should fail, man can struggle on alone. 
He is able to endure a thousand burdens that 
crowd upon him. He can endure crushing 
weights that ought to be spared him. He 
can submit — that hard word expressive of a 
severe experience — to what he cannot ex- 
plain. Jesus of Nazareth trod the wine-press 
alone ; in this he was a pattern for multitudes. 
This grandeur of human power is manifest 
in the every-day success of men whom early 
deprivations schooled into self-reliance. Bar- 
renest pastures and fields have seemed to 
turn out strongest men and women. Nearly 
all our most illustrious statesmen have grown 
strong through the limitations of poverty. It 
would be almost invidious to name them — 
Webster, Clay, Garfield, Lincoln, and hosts 



GREATER THAN OUR BURDENS 27 

like them. Republics and lesser organiza- 
tions do not place reliance upon any who are 
not self-reliant first; and self-reliance thrives 
best when others fail to help. 

It was the prayer of Luther written into 
his '' will " : '^ I thank thee, O God, that thou 
hast made me a poor man on the earth. '* 
The great reformers have nearly all been 
children of poverty, whose sufferings could 
not crush them. Literature is a fruit of 
sufferings in countless instances. It seems 
strange that '' Rasselas " was written to de- 
fray the funeral expenses of the famous 
writer's mother. During the time of Sir 
Isaac Newton's greatest discoveries his tax 
of two shillings a week to the Royal Society 
was a positive burden. Millions charmed by 
the ''Wizard of the North'' do not ponder 
the burdens of debt overcome by the work 
of his magic pen. While princes, bearing the 
name of rulers, have been whiling away their 
time upon trifles, many a subject has risen 
above and out of hardships into greater than 



28 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

kings. The most illustrious names in West- 
minster Abbey are not of those who have 
worn crowns. 

The annals of the world's benefactors con- 
tain the names of those who have conquered 
sharpest difficulties and proved themselves 
greater than all their burdens. Whatever 
the condition or environment, man is superior 
to it. 

Human endurance is largely a product of 
something above and beyond itself. Moses 
saw the throne of the Pharaohs, yet knew of 
another infinitely higher, and so refused the 
lower. He recognized the pleasures of sin, 
yet saw a far higher enjoyment in doing his 
duty — that word so often meaning drudgery 
and pain. He saw the riches of Egypt, yet 
looked upon rich treasures that Pharaohs 
never can handle or count. '' He endured, 
as seeing Him who is invisible. '' 

Modern life is not wholly barren of such 
sacrifice for principle. The biographer of 
Jenny Lind has pictured her sitting close by 



GREATER THAN OUR BURDENS 29 

the surfs that were rolling in from the ocean. 
Upon her knee was a Lutheran Bible ; while 
closing down upon the westward waters was 
a sunset of surpassing splendor and beauty. 

The world had been entranced by this 
gentle woman, whose voice gave hints of 
what angels' voices may be. Crowded as- 
semblies had called and recalled her again 
and again to look upon her face and hear 
such notes as other human lips have never 
rendered. The wealth of continents had 
striven to give its owners a place where the 
enchantress of song ruled. It was a friend 
who asked why it was she had abandoned the 
stage in her early career, when at the very 
height of the most brilliant successes. To 
the question the great artist quietly replied, 
*' When every day it made me think less of 
this " (laying her finger on the Bible) '' and 
nothing at all of that" (pointing to the sun- 
set), '' what else could I do? " 

In that gentle answer breathes a principle 
no one can neglect. The most winsome, flat- 



30 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

tering enchantments of life must never be 
allowed to usurp the place God holds. The 
presence of the great singer had been sought 
by the royal houses of Europe; kings and 
queens had given her the homage of unsullied 
admiration; millions had crowded the halls 
where she sang; but whatever should draw 
her thoughts from God's Book, or turn her 
attention from the sunset splendors, must be 
surrendered. 

There is a divine compensation for every 
true sacrifice. Why is it men can endure 
crushing burdens ? How is it they can bear 
losses without flinching? Can there be en- 
durance without hope ? If there is no object 
ahead in life, can we endure the drudgery? 
Is there comfort to those who know no future 
life? Hope is an inspiration. It banishes 
fear. To lose hope would be to lose all. 

The pathway of each life is strewn with 
broken plans and unfulfilled expectations; 
but the things now shattered inspired at first. 
We Hve in hope. It is the cheer underlying 



GREATER THAN OUR BURDENS 31 

every great action. It is proven in every 
ship of commerce plowing the seas. It stim- 
ulates all courage in business. It quickens 
the deeds of the plowman, preparing his 
harvest. Hope never dies till the man dies. 
Yet even hope may be false. It may be 
bright in youth ; in prosperity, when time 
flows smoothly ; but if it fails in sickness, or 
loses its grip in discouraging times, its false- 
ness is manifest. It has followed a rushlight, 
supposing it a beacon. 

Endurance of burdens depends upon seeing 
the unseen. When wealth is swept away, 
seeing Him who is invisible means see- 
ing greater riches and treasures than gold. 
When earthly honors are lost, seeing the in- 
visible means looking upon the higher throne 
of power. When grief rolls in its floods of 
agony, seeing the invisible keeps our thoughts 
above the terrible darkness. The rainbow is 
brightest on the blackest cloud; so the 
strongest hope and courage may rest over 
hearts that are plowed by heaviest griefs. 



32 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

Seeing Him who is invisible means that this 
Hfe is not ended by death. No more hun- 
ger; no more pain. All tears shall be wiped 
away. No more need of sunlight; God is 
the sun. 

The best part of the true life comes after 
this life is finished. The things that are seen 
are temporal; those not seen are eternal. 
The revelations of Scripture agree with man's 
own nature; he is larger than his troubles, 
superior to his environment. Made in the 
image of God, he can endure and work, en- 
dure and wait. He can bear labor and sor- 
row, and at last catch the vision of Beulah. 
He can say all through the pathway of labor 
and sorrow, '' I have conquered.*' When he 
treads the last dark valley, it will be the 
assurance of conviction he speaks : *' I have 
conquered the world.*' He can live without 
receiving pity. Though sympathy were 
denied him, yet the strength is in him. Man 
is greater than all he suffers ; larger than his 
largest sorrows. 



GREATER THAN OUR BURDENS 33 

*' How wonderful is man! 
Connection exquisite of distant worlds! 
Distinguished link in Being's endless chain! 
Midway from nothing to the Deity! 
A being ethereal, sullied, and absorbed! 
Though sullied and dishonored, still divine! 
Dim miniature of greatness absolute! 
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust! 
Helpless Immortal! Insect infinite! 
A Worm! a God!" 



II 

THE IMMORTAL LIFE 



35 



Profit and loss of life real or fictitious. — If death ends 
all! — Immortality as a motive. 

Two facts : our weakness and possibilities. — Tabernacles 
to be taken down. — Materialism borrows language of the 
spiritual. — Comparison between the temporal and lasting. 
— Mansions outlast the occupants. — Immortality in the 
human face. 

Undying desire for undying life. — Death the history of 
the race. — Christ conquered death. — Immortality a human 
intuition. — This conviction gives power. 

First : Every-day burdens. — Living troubles. — The im- 
mortal not dependent upon temporal things. — World power- 
less in making weak man strong or strong man weak. 

Immortality makes great hope ; develops abilities. — This 
intuition met by Christ's assurance. — Life of Jesus ; Paul. — 
If life ends with the flesh, most helpful and wisest of the 
race have been deceived. 

The immortal and earthly '^ goods." — Immortal man in- 
finitely superior to all he can handle. 

Secondly: The burden of grief. — The lonely home. — 
Stoicism hard; Jesus wept. — Christian to love; Christian 
to weep. — Life not ended here. — Hope, compensation for 
broken homes. — Love makes heavy burdens. — Max MUller 
quoted. 



36 



II 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE 




|HE '' profit and loss ^' of life is real 
or fictitious, according to our stan- 
dard. If death ends all, life is all a 
loss. It would then endure its hardships, 
carry its burdens, and pass away with no 
satisfaction to itself. It would endure hard 
struggles in commercial or other directions, 
and die unsatisfied. It would deny itself for 
the children, only to leave them forever. It 
would stand by the bedside of the idoHzed 
child, and turn away from the beautiful 
though lifeless form without one ray of hope. 
If there were no continuation of life indepen- 
dent of this physical body, it would not be 
worth living. 

37 



38 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

The conviction of the immortal Hfe changes 
our estimate of everything. It impels hope. 
The poor anticipate a balancing of seeming 
inequalities. Sufferers speak of a world 
where there is no pain; where they never 
say, '' I am sick/' where there is no hunger 
nor thirst. In such a hope and conviction the 
dying assure us we shall meet again. The 
added years do not bring dismay. The 
weary and the aged speak complacently of 
laying down their burdens for the burdenless 
existence. 

Two great facts confront each one of us, 
our weakness and our possibilities. The one 
pertains to the body of flesh, the other to our 
spiritual nature. We dwell in this tent of the 
flesh. We have a body ; it is our possession, 
not ourself. It is not the hand that thinks, 
nor the eye that plans, nor the face that 
loves; hand, heart, and face declare in a 
physical sense what the spiritual being within 
wills and controls. 

Take human existence, called life : it begins 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE 39 

cramped by the weakness of infancy; it 
grows up under the bounding impulses of 
youth ; it braves the burdens of what is called 
maturity; it seems to droop under the weari- 
ness of age ; the steps become more slow, the 
frame begins to totter and tremble ; slowly 
but surely the mortal powers give way, until 
the strength is all gone ; yet through it all 
there has been but one life lived. No human 
eye has seen the life ; no ear has heard it 
throb ; no hand has touched its vibrations. 
The body drops through decay into the 
grave, but the life does not die. The spirit- 
ual nature or body occupies for a season the 
earthly, material body that is always dying. 
The Apostle reminds us that we are Hving in 
tabernacles that must be taken down; but 
the real life does not depend upon the tent. 

There is not a materialist who will not, in 
his denial of the spiritual, say, '' When I was 
a child," or '* When I was a youth," or 
*'When I became a man." Infidelity and 
materialism beg the very language of the 



40 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

spiritual in their self-assertions. The real 
nature, the immortal or spiritual, retains its 
perfect identity unchanged in an ever-chang- 
ing body. In other words, the unseen in 
man, the ego, is himself. Individual human 
history is thus summed up : ''I was born ; I 
have spent my youth ; I have passed through 
manhood; I am sick; I am dying.** And 
yet with the man of great intellect, when 
death had clutched his vitals, every one can 
say, even in the last moment, ''I still live.*' 
Dropping this body of flesh is not death; it 
is only the true and higher nature breaking 
away from that which was made to perish. 

It is strange that so many forget the dis- 
tinction between the temporal and the lasting. 
The houses we live in, the trees under whose 
shadows we rest from the heat of the sun, the 
gardens we plant, the orchards we cultivate, 
the highways we tread — everything upon 
which our vision rests is temporal and is pass- 
ing away. Time never ceases carving its lines 
into granite and marble. It is relentless; it 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE 41 

plants its mosses over names upon the tablets 
of the dead. It is a power, sweeping whole 
cities out of sight. 

Still, the mansions outlast the occupants. 
The buildings survive the builders. Com- 
pared with the human frame, granite is 
almost eternal. Flesh is perishable as grass. 
The heart tires out before time has gnawed 
into the granite. The fleshly body is temporal, 
like the house under whose roof it rests, only 
far more frail. The body dies, but the man 
never. The mansion decays, but the occu- 
pant lives. Our real life is the immortal. 

It was said of a distinguished scholar of 
this generation that no man could look into 
his face without believing in immortality. 
There is nothing so expressive as the human 
face. It may be a child's face ; yet there are 
seen depths of eternity in the child's eyes. 
Man is more than a walking pillar of dust. 
There is an infinite pathos back of the human 
voice. Thought is at an infinite remove from 
the organs that give it utterance. 



42 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

In this conviction of the dual nature of 
man the latest science and the Scriptures 
agree. Man is preeminently an immortal 
being dwelling for his earthly life in material 
form. We who briefly deal with material 
affairs are to live on when the last of earth 
has come. 

Within every one dwells this undying de- 
sire for an undying life ; but after the most 
has been said, the history of human life is 
equally the history of death. There has 
always been a shrinking from the great 
change. It has made the gloom of Egypt 
deeper; it has put out the light of Athens; 
it has darkened the snowy summit of Olym- 
pus; it has bated the breath of men pro- 
fessing no timidity. Men have feared the 
Hannibals of history, but they have feared 
death more. They have shivered within 
sound of Alva's sword, but have preferred a 
life amid cruelties rather than a silence in 
death. With all the strength of hope there 
lingers yet in every human breast a shrink- 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE 43 

ing which the power of God alone can 
remedy. 

Unless Christ had allayed this fear; unless 
he had revealed an immortal life transcending 
this, before whose splendor the brightness of 
this world is as a cloud ; unless he could, and 
did, prove himself mightier than death, his 
mission would have been a comparative fail- 
ure. He might have given sight to all the 
blind in that ophthalmic climate ; have swept 
the hectic flush from every fevered face ; have 
banished all leprosy from the paths he trod ; 
he might have left neither lame nor halt 
within the walls of any town whose streets 
echoed his footsteps ; and yet, if he had not 
conquered death — that greater than fever or 
deformity or leprosy — his mission would have 
gained no hold upon the race. Passing into 
the hour of the great change, he could well 
say, ''It is finished.'' If he had never cast 
off his transfigured raiment for the '' decease 
he should accomplish at Jerusalem," we would 
still have been shrouded in the terrible mys- 



44 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

tery which the great fact of the resurrection 
from his tomb has dispelled. Our life is in 
the temporary house, but not of\t. 

Every race, from the most rude to those 
most cultured, has intuitively beHeved in 
immortality. The Scriptures assume it from 
first to last. Experts in science accept the 
same fact. Man is an immortal, a citizen of 
another world than this. 

We have previously observed man's ability 
to endure hardships and disappointments and 
sorrows; this conviction of his immortal na- 
ture gives yet greater power. We notice 
two particulars. 

First, the every-day burdens. Just as over 
nature cyclones and fierce storms sweep their 
destructive paths, so is it in common life. 
Panics disturb the commercial centers. Un- 
scrupulous men imperil the credit of the 
honorable and just. Knaves ply their trade. 
Vile characters plot to defame the pure. 
Trusted companions prove themselves ene- 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE 45 

mies. Living troubles crowd into the home. 
Hardship falls where once was ease. 

The full enumeration of human ills baffles 
recital. What shall the '' man immortal '' do 
with these? Shall he grow timid because 
men clinging to commercial prosperity are 
afraid? Shall he weaken his manhood be- 
cause men who have abandoned their man- 
hood trouble him? Shall he forget his 
immortal destiny and its rewards because 
knaves do not know they are brutish ? Shall 
he quail if any look askance, when he knows 
his purity of motive and conduct? Shall 
he fear when the once trusted reveal their 
meanness? Shall he shrink from his accus- 
tomed duties because others, whom he loves, 
destroy for themselves their promising future ? 

Human strength does not grow from the 
soil where thistles grow, nor come down from 
clouds where lightnings play. The magnifi- 
cent forces of the republic cannot make a 
weak man strong nor a strong man weak. 



46 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

One man with God is a majority. It is so 
ordered in the nature of things that every one 
may keep the place for which his character fits 
him. What, therefore, does this immortal do 
amid the burdens surrounding him and im- 
peding his path? 

A great hope makes great deeds. Cramp 
Hfe to its existence here, and human aspira- 
tions are all dwarfed. Given larger possi- 
bilities for this existence, there are corre- 
sponding abilities developed. Strike away 
hope, and death begins. Let the idea that 
this life is all obtain, and the crowding evils 
and cares will bring despair. 

This assurance of an endless life is a 
characteristic belief of the largest benefactors 
of the race. Christ met this longing for a 
higher life by his words, '' If it were not so, 
I would have told you." If there is no end- 
less life, the words of Christ in his dying 
breath were those of delusion : '' Father, into 
thy hands I commend my spirit." If there 
is no continuity of life, the life of Christ in 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE 47 

its self-sacrifice was a tremendous mistake. 
If the teachings of Paul were, and are, false, 
his magnificent career was only that of a fool. 
If the hfe we live goes down with the flesh, 
the best men of the world have been deceived. 
In such a case Paul was courageous for 
nothing; martyrs and heroes were acting a 
foolish part. Does there not seem an incon- 
gruity in the idea of the wisest and most 
helpful of the race being those who have 
been the most deceived? 

Our exalted conception of the immortal 
life makes even the legitimate affairs of this 
life seem tawdry and gross. How would an 
angel look counting money? We should 
doubt him as an angel. How would Gabriel 
appear giving his angelic attention to organ- 
izing a '' trust " ? The quaint dreamer pictures 
earthly things as refuse gathered with muck- 
rakes. In themselves, all these are worth- 
less beyond the limitations of earth. As 
inhabitants of the earth, however, we have 
to do with them. All are valuable in their 



48 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

place. Yet, if the loss comes, shall the im- 
mortal mourn? When bank-stocks grow 
less in value, shall this immortal imagine that 
God is leaving his throne? When knaves 
destroy his credit, shall he think that God*s 
promise is failing? The wealth of a Roths- 
child is not of as much value to an immortal 
spirit as are our old broken playthings of 
childhood valuable to us. Who can imagine 
one of the redeemed sighing to come back to 
earth to take up a few mortgages? None 
could suggest any comparison between the 
mansion Christ has prepared and the mansion 
left behind on earth. We are to use these 
things as not abusing them ; but we shall 
take none away with us. Why not, then, 
treat them at their worth, or worthlessness ? 
A kind word can do more for us than can 
the national treasury. The tear of sympathy 
Is more resplendent of beauty than the most 
brilliant rainbow. '' Crown me with flowers,'* 
said the dying Mirabeau ; '' I have within me 
a hundred years of life, but not a moment's 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE 49 

The courage he lacked was what 
the Christian faith would have given. When 
Collingwood, the old English admiral, was 
breathing his last, the captain expressed the 
fear that the tossing of the ship disturbed him. 
" No, Thomas,'* he replied, *' I am now in 
that state in which nothing in this world can 
disturb me more.'' Immortal man need not 
wait till the dying-hour to learn of his infinite 
superiority to all he can look upon and handle. 
Immortals have to deal with perishable things, 
but we can live — at last we must live — with- 
out them. 

Secondly, the burden of grief , Every home 
can appreciate the utter darkness possible 
even in the brightest day. Sunshine is 
sometimes almost a mockery. The music 
of birds, piercing the silent room, hurts. 
Voices of passers-by seem harsh. Traffic 
will not stop even if the crape is on the door. 
Twilight in its splendors brings imaginings 
of the city with its walls of precious stones. 
Creeping darkness makes a chill in the heat 



50 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

of summer. Glittering stars of night attract 
the aching hearts sighing for those who 
have taken the long, silent journey. Griefs 
come rolling over the heart as waves dash 
over the bather on the shore of the sea. It 
is terrible, this grief. No two days alike; 
listening always for the voice we cannot 
hear; speaking to ourselves the names of 
the loved and gone. Do they see us? Do 
they pity us? Will they not welcome us 
when we leave the earth ? What rest in the 
thought that they know our unspoken suf- 
ferings ! 

This is the darker side. Stoicism does not 
weep ; but Jesus wept. In the moment of the 
divine call Jesus knew his friend would come 
forth ; but even he wept. Weep on, beloved. 
Mothers and fathers have wept upon the 
leaving of their children for school. Friends 
have parted at the wharf, their tears expres- 
sive of affection, even though expecting to 
meet again. We send after them our love- 
filled missives, whose writing is blurred with 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE 51 

our tears. It is Christian to love ; therefore 
it is Christian to weep. The enforced parting 
is hard to endure. The disappointment is 
bitter. We can never be as before. A part 
of our Hfe seems gone. We find ourselves 
thinking when around us are busy tongues. 
We grow absent-minded. Grief is freaky 
and strange. But there is another side. 

The conviction of immortality reminds us 
we shall meet again. We cannot sorrow as 
those who have no hope. Life is not ended 
with the last breath. The future claims the 
thoughts of the silent chamber. The im- 
mortal hope reaches forward. What else 
could give the needed consolation? 

The home may have everything beautiful. 
Wealth may have lavished its luxuries upon 
each Hfe ; loving hearts have vied with one an- 
other in devotion. The almost idolized child 
is beyond the reach of highest medical skill. 
Her active mind has grown in power under 
most careful instruction. Her voice has 
charmed with its sweetest notes of song. 



52 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

Music, as from harps of gold, has thrilled 
under her touch of the strings. Ornaments 
of her choice beautify each room in the 
home. She has been the companion of the 
mother, the comfort of the father. Her face 
has brightened the home, has given happiness 
to those she has met on the street. The 
poor have kissed her shadow in passing. The 
aged have wondered how she gave them 
such joy. Little children have flocked to her 
side for recognition. Can she be spared? 
A sweetness unearthly rests upon the beauti- 
ful face. Lingering love draws in closer em- 
brace those who would gladly die for her. 
No tear on her cheek; she is going home. 
Hers is the only brave heart. Fond hopes 
of parents broken ; cherished plans for life 
destroyed! Is this all of life? Can such 
as she die? Is that growing character and 
power to end ? The world to come is larger 
than this. Its ministrations are ceaseless, its 
companionships eternal. Only immortal hope 
has power to give comfort in such surround- 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE 53 

ings, and to make the desolate calm. How 
else can the parents take up the heavy burdens 
connected with that sad home ? Nothing but 
the assurance of *' the better land " can solve 
the mystery of their bravery. 

Many a home has been softened and blessed 
in the memory of its promising son, too early 
gone. Tears dim the eyes of the lonely 
parents, waiting to meet him again. Threads 
of silver are crowding in more quickly since 
the last good-by. The father had expected 
to lean upon him ; but every nook and cor- 
ner of the homestead are vocal of him they 
cannot see. The mother's heart was almost 
breaking when she kissed him the last time. 
The conversation constantly recalls his name, 
as the two, stricken with grief, muse alone 
the long winter evenings. Their boy is not 
dead, only gone before. They wonder if 
immortals change with the passing roll of 
existence. They question how he will appear 
when they shall meet him again. They 
v/onder if the active spirit finds time to think 



54 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

of them. Dreamy questions crowd one upon 
another in quick succession, but all explain 
their conviction of his immortality. Love 
makes heavy burdens, burdens we would 
never forget. We cherish memories that 
bend us down; but our thoughts are strong 
in the immortal life. 

''Without such a belief,'' remarks Max 
Miiller, '' religion surely is like an arch resting 
on one pillar, like a bridge ending in an 
abyss." 



Ill 



SPIRITUAL HELPS IN EARTHLY 
HINDRANCES 



55 



Daily perplexities and cares spiritually helpful. 

Three sources of troubles. — From outside interference. — 
Blunders. — Innocent involved. 

Troubles increase with our duties. — Thrift follows 
piety. — Most devout will have most care. 

Our double service, to God and men. — Love met by 
jealous antagonisms. — Greatest troubles come to greatest 
helpers. 

Troubles in proportion to affection. — Love produces anxi- 
ety. 

The stronger the love the heavier the coming grief. — 
Burdens and hindrances a logical necessity of a loving, useful 
life. 

Relation of hindrances and trials to the spiritual life. — 
Growth by overcoming. — Adversity a school. 

Piety helped by common drudgery of life. — Best people 
the hardest worked. — Paul's tent-making. — Wilberforce. 

Annoyances better borne than removed. — Washington. 
Waterloo the fruit of reverses. 

The mission of pain and trouble. 

Golden experiences grown in dark days. — ^Joseph; Bun- 
yan ; David. 

God never unjust. — Reaping what we have sown. — Every- 
day things God's instruments. 

Wellesley College, fruit of grief. — Life a battle. — Best 
lovers of their kind those who have lost most. 



56 



Ill 

SPIRITUAL HELPS IN EARTHLY HIN- 
DRANCES 




T is one of the commonest mistakes 
to assume that our daily cares and 
perplexities hinder the growth of 
the spiritual life. The prayer is for prosper- 
ity, while adversity may have the best lessons 
to teach. Many assume that people are good 
in proportion as their cares and anxieties are 
less ; while the truth often is these very cares 
and perplexities help them to nobler living. 
We turn our attention to this seeming para- 
dox. The chiefest saints have often been the 
chiefest sufferers; is this the law? 

Three sources of troubles demand recog- 
nition. 

57 



58 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

Troubles arise from outside interference. 
People are always blundering somewhere. 
The innocent are involved in the consequences 
of others' wrong-doings. Many have seen the 
savings of a lifetime swept away by some de- 
faulter. 

It is a sad story the world has to repeat. 
Careless deeds bring death to many a home. 
So-called circumstantial evidence has some- 
times imprisoned the innocent. Things are 
not always as they seem. Places of infamy 
breed their destruction upon communities 
that beg in vain for their removal. Legisla- 
tures sometimes enact laws framed by law- 
breakers, making immorality legal. Public 
opinion vacillates under strange leaders, 
whose vagaries mean unrest to the law- 
abiding. 

Burdens multiply upon multitudes innocent 
of their cause. The inflictions are direct and 
indirect, but the fruits are often alike. Self- 
ishness seeks a vantage-ground for its dep- 
redations. Sharpers rob the unsuspecting. 



HELPS IN HINDRANCES 59 

Children are not safe from human fiends. 
Young and old share in the results of out- 
side annoyances. It is the consequence of 
sin. 

Yet, aside from the environment others 
have made, we observe the burdens and 
hindrances incident to our own callings. 

Troubles increase with our duties. It is 
just as necessary to be faithful in temporal 
as in spiritual things. It is just as much a 
Christian duty to be diligent in business as 
to be fervent in spirit. It may be truly 
affirmed that God abhors a lazy man. The 
best Christians are they who have the most 
to do every day. Faithfulness in the larger 
duties of the spiritual life will be manifest in 
faithfulness in the least things of every-day 
life. It is a fair question whether a mere 
tramp can be much of a Christian. Thrift 
follows piety. Awakening the mind to 
eternal things in their boundless grandeur 
compels more attention to the affairs of 
every-day life. 



60 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

In other words, since the religious hope 
demands greater progress and attention in 
reference to earthly things, and since hin- 
drances increase with the efforts required, 
our obHgations to duty will doubtless increase 
the hindrances in the way of the most de- 
voted Christian. They who attempt least 
will probably suffer least. Easy-going peo- 
ple make little effort and find few hindrances. 
The larger the business the heavier the 
difficulties to be overcome. The larger the 
ambition to do good the more the way will 
be hedged about. The more careful the 
housekeeper the more perplexities she will 
have. Troubles multiply according to the 
height of the ideal. 

The most devout among men will therefore 
have more cares rather than less. DiHgence 
in business requires the putting forth of 
greater efforts, and these efforts bring on 
greater solicitude. 

Scriptural teaching requires of us a double 
service, love to God and to men. If we love 



HELPS IN HINDRANCES 61 

God we shall do our best for those about us. 
As spiritual beings we are compelled to live 
according to such a standard. This is no 
easy task. The living means doing and pro- 
gressing. It means becoming better ourselves 
and making others better. It demands 
obedience to the moral rather than to the 
merely economical. It will probably clash 
against popular theories. It may cut down 
dividends as abolitionism did the profits of 
the mill-owners of New England. It may 
invoke the hatred of the rum-power when 
one tries to save the drunkard. It will exas- 
perate the corrupter of morals when pernicious 
Hterature is destroyed. 

The point we notice is: the higher the 
standard of Hving the heavier the hindrances. 
Corrupt men will fight against whatever 
touches their avarice or appetite. And yet 
more timid advisers may seek to intimidate 
also. The very line of every known duty 
leads through great obstacles. 

History emphasizes such a fact in all its 



62 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

chapters. Human envy and jealousy alone 
crucified Christ. James was beheaded to 
please the Jews, and for the same reason 
Peter was cast into prison. The Herods have 
been jealous of their thrones. Organized 
wickedness has always counted life cheap 
that has stood in its way. Upholders of 
human slavery inaugurated our civil rebellion. 
Ecclesiastical despotism kept up its Thirty 
Years' War. Reformers are always martyrs 
under hardships. Personal sacrifice is the 
price of doing good. In the line of such 
a certainty the great Teacher exclaimed: 
*' Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well 
of you ! '* Such a '' good feeling '' would indi- 
cate that nothing was being done or attempted 
because there were no obstacles. 

Troubles arise in proportio7i to the depth of 
oitr affection. The deeper our love the 
greater our anxiety for the object loved. 
They who have none to love have none to 
worry over. It is love that keeps the mother 
awake night after night, week after week, 



HELPS IN HINDRANCES 63 

while the child is tossing with pain. Unnat- 
ural mothers give themselves no concern for 
their children. The degree of love measures 
out the mother's care. 

Upon the same principle sorrows are pro- 
portioned to the degree of the love. We do 
not mourn for strangers whom we do not 
know. The stronger the love the heavier the 
grief that must some time come. Griefs, 
heavy and oppressive, result from a natural 
law. 

In suggesting the sources of troubles we 
have not referred to seeming providences, 
with which man has nothing to do. Cyclones 
plow their destructive paths, and often life 
is sacrificed. Earthquakes tremble beneath 
dwellings whose occupants cannot escape. 
Lightnings strike from the skies where but an 
hour ago the sunshine gleamed. Volcanoes 
heave forth lava and ashes upon whole towns, 
burying them from the sight of the living. 
There is much that we cannot avoid; yet 
people move into earthquake countries, and 



64 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

take up reservations that are subject to 
deathly harm, and build close to the volcano's 
crater. A large number of the so-called 
providences are chiefly human risks know- 
ingly taken. But concerning providences we 
do not discriminate. 

In the order of nature burdens and hin- 
drances are a necessity. Since the path of 
duty compels more burdens, and since love 
makes sorrows, it would seem that they must 
have some power upon the sufi'erers them- 
selves. 

What relation is there between the spiritual 
life and these inevitable hindrances and 
trials? The hindrances and burdens help 
rather than hinder. We grow by overcom- 
ing. Every difficulty overcome by the busi- 
ness man makes him stronger. There were 
seemingly insurmountable obstacles to the 
development of the steamship; yet these 
made Fulton stronger, as he conquered them 
one by one. Every assault against John 
Howard gave him stronger resolutions. The 



HELPS IN HINDRANCES Q^ 

early hardships of Livingstone were an abso- 
lute necessity in the discipline fitting him for 
his magnificent work. 

Business adversity does not produce pros- 
perity, but it makes the courageous man 
strong enough to succeed when he tries again. 
Conditions and things are not separated into 
secular and spiritual, as regards their effects. 
Patience may be demanded alike by depriva- 
tion of churchly privileges or by an insect's 
sting. Under either contingency it is a 
Christian virtue to be patient. Christian 
endurance and resignation may be called for 
as much by what we personally cannot do as 
by what others may do. 

Piety is not necessarily increased by avoid- 
ing the common drudgery of life. We could 
not become better Christians by going into 
the desert where there is nothing to be done. 
The very best people are they who are hard- 
est worked in common affairs. Some one, 
meeting Wilberforce on the street, asked him, 
''Brother, how is i^ with your soul?*' 



66 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

*' Really/' replied the great philanthropist, 
^* I have been so busy about these poor 
negroes I had forgotten that I had a soul/' 
Can one doubt that such unconscious labors 
for those poor slaves made Wilberforce a 
larger and better man than could any amount 
of meditation? Paul's tent-making never 
hurt his piety. 

The ten thousand annoyances and anxious 
cares are borne by those whose heavenly title 
is the clearest. There is an important disci- 
pline in these common things. Personal de- 
velopment under such is vastly better than 
the removal of them from our paths. The 
wearying cares of home may be brightening 
many a mother's crown of glory. The faithful 
man of business, in all his perplexities, can 
discern the perfect harmony and mutual help- 
fulness of every-day activities and spiritual 
growth in the apostolic injunction to be '' dili- 
gent in business; fervent in spirit; serving 
the Lord.'' 

Washington had more defeats than victo- 



HELPS IN HINDRANCES 67 

ries ; but the defeats schooled the army into 
better discipHne. Waterloo was the magnifi- 
cent flower growing out of the soil of Well- 
ington's many reverses. He is the best 
mariner w^ho has met successfully the most 
gales and tempests, not the one who has 
kept by the wharf. All this is true in 
individual experience. The mistakes of the 
proud have often brought the perpetrator 
to the beauty of humility. Adversity has 
subdued rough natures into childHke sweet- 
ness. These annoyances are often the 
sharpest chisels in creating symmetry of 
character. 

We could not be trustful unless compelled 
to look elsewhere for help. We should not 
learn patience unless severely tested in bear- 
ing burdens; thus the burdens are blessings 
in disguise. We should not be gentle unless 
we were first made to feel our own weakness. 
False friendships should make us know better 
the worth of real love. 

We do not speak of small troubles; all 



68 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

troubles are hard enough to bear at the best. 
A speck of dust in the eye can make misery. 
One little pain can cause a sleepless night. 
One harsh, thoughtless word can make 
another suffer days and weeks of torture. 
One expression of ingratitude causes a burden 
of crushing force. 

Gentle, loving hearts often suffer most 
keenly when they do not understand how 
very beautiful those very sufferings are mak- 
ing their characters. Cripples who have 
never been moved from their chambers for a 
generation have among their number those 
whose faces are angelic. The greatest com- 
forters of the poor are they who have met 
with greatest losses themselves, and who 
know the two extremes. The most welcome 
helpers in the chambers of sickness are they 
who have known best the meaning of pain. 
The truest comforters in homes of sorrow 
are they who have had the most of sorrow 
themselves, provided they have profited by 
the experience. Volumes might be written 



HELPS IN HINDRANCES 69 

upon the mission of pain and trouble. Such 
biographies would touch every human life. 
Sometimes these hard experiences are needed 
to stir people up to a perception of what they 
ought to be and do. Even injustice may 
become a goad to the development of 
courage. 

We must not be understood as saying that 
the benefit is in the pain or hindrance or 
sorrow. Such discipline is profitable only to 
those who try to learn the lessons. All the 
storms, mingled with the sunlight, cannot 
make flowers grow upon the Sahara. The 
mellowest sunshine and the gentlest rain upon 
the rock will leave it only a rock. To catch 
the meaning and value of these things our 
spiritual natures must devoutly meditate and 
pray for help. 

Many people discount even the sunshine. 
There are those who are always cynical and 
sour. We must make every trouble helpful 
to ourselves, or it will make us morose and 
unapproachable. The hard things are calcu- 



70 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

lated to make us grow better. In one sense 
they are as important in the development of 
our characters as is the revelation of God in 
Scripture. The Bible tells us how to grow; 
reminds us of the great principles underlying 
the successful life ; gives the reasons for much 
we could not otherwise understand; but the 
things we daily meet are the practical tests 
found in our way. The earthly dark day 
ought to make a golden spiritual experience. 

The brightest days have followed the 
blackest in history. Had Joseph not been 
sold as a slave and cast into prison, he would 
never have been the Bismarck of Egypt. 
Had Paul not been repeatedly dungeoned, he 
might not have found time to write the epis- 
tles that have inspired the centuries. Had 
Bunyan not been thrown into Bedford jail, 
the world would have forever missed his 
immortal ''Pilgrim." The Psalms of David 
were written out of his sufferings. ''The 
songs in the night '' count up the longest list. 

We are not inquiring into the origin of evil. 



HELPS IN HINDRANCES 71 

One fact is sure : God never has been cruel. 
He has never done an unjust thing. He has 
never needlessly caused a single tear. He 
has never inflicted one hardship upon even 
his weakest child. Scriptural philosophy 
teaches us that death has come by human 
sin. Divine laws have been interfered with. 
Man reaps the harvest of his own sowing. 
Heredity carries with it consequences of what 
others have done. This is the inevitable, 
inexorable law. The sufferings of Job are 
all under a divine permission, not creation. 
^' God cannot be tempted with evil, neither 
tempteth he any man." Our thought is in 
the line of Paul's assertion: ^' We know that 
to them that love God all things work to- 
gether for good.'' Burke truly spoke of 
'' that great chain of causes which, linking 
one to another, even to the throne of God 
himself, can never be unraveled by any 
industry of ours.*' 

These things ** work together for good.*' 
All belong together, and each helps interpret 



72 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

the rest. Hammers and saws and planes are 
all necessary under the architect's supervi- 
sion; but the great Architect uses every-day 
things for chisels and hammers and imple- 
ments to smooth down the roughnesses that 
would otherwise be left in our nature. 

It was a severe disappointment when a 
young man, because of impaired eyesight, 
felt impelled to give up the chosen profession 
of his life — the Christian ministry ; but this 
disappointment gave him power in other 
directions. Williston Academy of learning 
bears his name, while many other institutions 
attest his munificence. His disappointment 
was for his personal good and a benefit to 
others. 

The beautiful college on the banks of the 
Waban owes its foundation to sorrow. 
Death took from two loving hearts their 
idolized son. The desolation of that sump- 
tuous home has ever since been changing 
multitudes of lives. The father found in that 
sorrow his abiding faith. He had been a 



HELPS IN HINDRANCES 73 

leading member of the brilliant Suffolk bar; 
but he closed his law office. Heavy retainers 
had been his every-day possibilities ; but 
these he took no longer. His equipment for 
life had been wholly in his profession ; but he 
turned his face from all this. The sorrows 
through which he passed led him to plan for 
others' good. The pain he suffered led him 
to live for what he might give, not for what 
he might get. The father's and mother's 
sorrow gave the world its Wellesley College. 

Sorrow in a palace made possible the 
further exploration of Africa, in order that its 
mysterious history should be brought into 
the light of men. The heart of the king was 
turned from the death-chamber of his beloved 
son to enfranchise the continent by opening 
its doors to the world. 

We are not made to sit alone in sorrow 
or wilt under hardship or trial. The hard 
things, the hindrances, the trials, the obsta- 
cles, we must accept as a part of our schooling. 
Out from such a discipUne we must come 



T4 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

stronger and better. There is something 
magnificent in a manhood that will not flinch 
in adversity; that has a strength within 
mightier than all the forces of opposition 
without; that braves storms until the skies 
have become clear again. This is strength 
in exercise. 

Add a few years and the fascination 
deepens. Time has made havoc with the 
smoothness of the face ; the hair is white with 
glory ; the slower step reminds of the weari- 
ness in walking rough places ; the subdued 
voice echoes the attained wisdom. Like the 
ship that has breasted the wintry storms 
of the Atlantic, Hke the eagle that has 
winged his serenest, loftiest flight, like the cHff 
whose deep-seamed rifts declare what waves 
of wrath have dashed upon it in vain — such is 
life going out of this school of discipline into 
an existence where angels walk with the re- 
deemed. 

The losses of this life, the companions gone, 
the homes broken, the memories left — all 



HELPS IN HINDRANCES 75 

these give a tenderer affection for the living. 
The best lovers of their kind are usually they 
who have lost the most. 

** Let us be patient; these severe afflictions 
Not from the ground arise, 
But oftentimes celestial benedictions 
Assume this dark disguise. 

** We see but dimly through the mists and vapors ; 
Amid these earthly damps 
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers 
May be heaven's distant lamps. 

** There is no death; what seems so is transition; 
This life of mortal breath 
Is but the suburb of the life elysian, 
Whose portal we call death." 



IV 
PATIENCE 



77 



Ruskin's " rests " of life. — Patience hard to exercise. — 
Severer test than faith. — Endurance a necessity ; patience a 
virtue. — Its character. — Illustrations. 

Patience more than love. — Hardest lesson. — Does not 
blunt the sensibilities. 

First, patience needed because of the unattained. — 
The ideal; sacrifices for reaching it. — Not natural to antici- 
pate obstacles. — Life never as we plan it. — Patient or im- 
patient under griefs. — Fascination in character softened by 
patience. — Hearts beautified by sorrow. — Patience winning 
others to itself. 

Secondly, patience under discipline accords with purest 
reason. — Compels appreciation of endless life. — Impatience 
unreasonable and unmanly. 

Thirdly, patience is the method of personal development. 
— God never frets. — Slow process of creation. — No haste in 
the divine plans. 

Human perfection hard fruit to ripen. — Ideal always 
ahead of attainment. — Struggle is serious. — Thoughtless 
words ; opportunities neglected ; anger expressed. 

Patience under our own weaknesses. — A noble life a slow 
growth. — Patience begins at home. — Fault-finders. — Patient 
heart serene under trials. — Provocations from without. 

Patience means suffering. — If the occasion is removed no 
patience needed. — It keeps suffering. — Poor and rich need 
it. — It is heroism. — Its virtue shown from its opposite, 
impatience. 

Religious hope better seen in patience than in love. — 
Differing temperaments. 



78 



IV 



PATIENCE 




|T is a beautiful thought of Ruskin 
that in the music of our Hves God 
has inserted '' rests." The imagery- 
is of the chorus all silent, the artists waiting 
to sweep the strings again. The great audi- 
ence is almost breathless until orchestra and 
chorus shall burst into the grand harmonies 
from which they have rested. There is no 
music in the '' rest/' but it helps the music. 

Patience is that ''rest." It is harder to 
time the '' rest " than to follow the leader's 
baton in the music itself. It is natural to be 
doing, to be heard, to carry along the waiting 
ones who depend upon our deeds. To sit 
when we wish to move; to rest when our 
79 



80 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

hearts throb to give help ; to wait when so 
much needs doing— this is hard. Inspiration 
reminds us that the husbandman has long 
patience waiting for the harvest; shall we 
have less ? He sees the vines put forth their 
tendrils and leaves. The harvest seems as- 
sured, but he must wait whether or not frosts 
shall come, or mildews blight. His faith sees 
the har^-est, but he must patiently toil on. 
Patience is a greater test of character than 
mere faith. 

We are made to endure hardships and sor- 
rows ; but patience is a virtue, while endur- 
ance is a necessity. Endurance pertains to 
our natural strength; but patience belongs 
to the moral. People may endure burdens 
impatiently; but there is no virtue in this. 
Patience means bearing human weaknesses 
with a loving heart. It involves gentleness. 
It bears wrongs with sweetness. It will 
neither fret nor complain. It is the only 
virtue that will carry out the good will of the 
heart. It is an ornament of character. 



PATIENCE 81 

Patience is regnant when the merchant can 
look bankruptcy in the face and calmly bear 
the loss. It soothes a nature fretting under 
ill health, and gently accepts the disappoint- 
ment in the failure to carry out carefully laid 
plans. It dwells in the home whose desolate 
rooms echo the voice now gone ; looks out of 
windows where loved ones once looked; re- 
members with keenest love the blessings of 
the Hfe now silent; yet waits to understand 
the reasons by and by. Pain gnaws upon 
the nerves, but patience rises above the 
pain. 

Patience is more than love, since even 
mothers have sometimes been impatient. 
Most loving fathers have fretted when they 
should have soothed the childish hearts. 
Patience is the hardest lesson given in the 
school of life. It is not insensibility to things 
that hurt ; it does not blunt the faculties ; it 
feels injustice most keenly. It does not make 
the grief less, but bears the heavy burdens 
without complaint. 



82 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

We notice in a practical way the need of 
patience : 

First, we need patience because of the unat- 
tained. Human ambitions are almost as far- 
reaching as the imagination. Large plans 
are made to be completed. Splendid castles 
are planned far ahead. The ideal stimulates 
life. Men deny themselves luxuries for the 
present, anticipating them by and by. They 
sacrifice ease and comforts for that which 
they seek. They toil early and late. So- 
ciety is in this feverish haste. 

Calculations of obstacles to the plans are 
not magnified. We imagine the delights that 
will come to the loved ones when the good 
day comes. Yet how few carry out their cher- 
ished purposes without obstructions ! Wealth 
has wings and sometimes flies away. The 
crape on the door signifies thwarted hopes. 
The full ideal is not attained. Life never 
comes out as we plan its paths. People 
everywhere are speaking of what might have 
been. They are telling where they made the 



PATIENCE 83 

miscalculation, or they remind of the griefs 
that blasted every ambition. 

It requires patience to bear these obstruc- 
tions and changes with composure. We may 
endure them; but are we patient? Do they 
make us grow morose and complaining ? Or 
do they make us more serene? They ought 
to help us become more loving; do they? 
One of these two characters follows each 
grief and disappointment; which is it? 

There is something fascinating in the suc- 
cessful business man's career, when prosperity 
increases and prospects brighten; yet there 
is greater fascination in one who has suffered 
earthly losses, but whose character is softened 
and subdued into the beauty of patience. 

There is nowhere a scene more beautiful 
than the home bright with activities of life 
and love. Center of attraction for young 
and old, it stands a joy in the community. 
Parental love vies with that of the children 
to give one another joy. But somehow the 
most loving hearts may be beautified by sor- 



84 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

row. Did you ever notice the change upon 
the mother's face whose heart keeps close to 
the beautiful child gone before? Is there 
sculptor's chisel that can work such changes 
upon purest marble as sorrows can fashion 
upon the human face? Was there ever 
painter's brush that could bring such fascina- 
tion into the face on the canvas as patience 
brings to the original? How quickly the 
timid and troubled find their way to such for 
advice and consolation! How lovingly the 
eyes of all follow their steps! The heart- 
broken linger at their hearthstone. The 
thoughtless ask the secret of their power. 
What inspiration is it holding such sway over 
all hearts? Is it their love, or their faith? 
Write the word large ; there is love and faith 
back of it — Patience, 

Secondly, patience under discipline accords 
with purest reason. We repeat the thought : 
man is greater than his burdens. As an im- 
mortal none of these things can move him. 
Patience rests upon faith in God. Faith 



I 



PATIENCE 85 

never questions that God does all things 
well. That there are things we cannot yet 
understand all admit. But aside from events 
that come, our independence of them is 
evident. 

Shall one give way to despair if riches take 
to themselves wings ? Not even one speck of 
our gold-dust ghtters on the eternal streets. 
With all the terrible depths of grief, shall the 
Christian complain when the immortal visions 
burst upon the beloved? Reason compels an 
appreciation of our endless life and hope, and 
commands us to trust in patience. Reason 
accords with Scripture in asserting the nobil- 
ity of man. It is unreasonable to fret and 
complain. Such are not signs of greatness or 
of deeper love. Impatience is unreasonable 
and unmanly. 

Thirdly, patience is the method of personal 
development. It is the divine method. God 
is never in a hurry and is never late. He 
never frets. The slow processes of creation 
baffle our conceptions. A single coal-seam 



86 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

six inches thick contains more vegetable 
matter than a thousand years could possi- 
bly grow. The coal period alone counts up 
among hundreds of thousands of years. Geo- 
logical research through all the periods and 
ages is but an unfolding of the divine pa- 
tience. The almighty God waits for islands 
to rise from the ocean whose builders are only 
insects. He has builded continents by add- 
ing the slow deposits of sand, grain by grain. 
The book of nature is a demonstration of the 
patience of God. 

The lesser things of every- day life remind 
of the same fact. Men get nervous and wish 
everything done in a day; but God's day is 
sometimes a thousand years. It requires 
months * for the Almighty to perfect the 
flower that we tread underfoot in our haste. 
It takes him a whole season to finish the 
golden fruit that we can waste in a moment's 
time. He puts a thousand years into the 
majestic growth of the oak that the wood- 
man can spoil in an hour. Though nations 



PATIENCE 87 

are suffering with famine, the wheat-fields 
grow not one day earher. Though the ripen- 
ing of the fruit by a week's time would vastly 
increase its value, yet man must patiently 
wait God's slower way. The conditions of 
haste do not enter into the divine plans. 

Human moral perfection is a more difficult 
fruit to raise than orchards produce from 
thriftiest trees. Patience is more beautiful 
than any lily that has ever sprung from the soil. 
So long as we know better than we do, we 
have not reached the highest state. The 
ideal is always ahead of the attainment. 
Goodness as a limit is infinite as God, and 
no one can fully attain that which will com- 
pletely satisfy. No one has yet attained, nor 
is already perfect. 

From this discrepancy between the ideal 
and the attained we can understand the daily 
tax upon patience. We know what we ought 
to be, but are still far short of the standard 
we have set. The struggle is serious. It 
requires a stern control for these imperious 



88 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

natures of ours to keep still. We know the 
sacredness of our neighbor's rights ; his faults 
are not at the disposal of our tongue, nor is 
his sensitive spirit open to our shafts of wit; 
yet the thoughtless word slips off our tongue, 
and we are further from the ideal than ever. 
We firmly resolve to help those who are 
truly in need ; the resolution agrees with the 
ideal; it is the expression of our higher na- 
ture ; but somehow we neglect the opportu- 
nity, and the sufferers can lay their woes at 
our doors, and the distance between the ideal 
and the attained is great. Again, we resolve 
that anger shall be kept down; but in some 
passing moment the virtuous resolve is broken 
in stinging words that fly from our lips. 

We need patience more because of our 
own weaknesses than because of the weak- 
nesses and encroachments of others. A high 
and noble life is no growth of a day. Re- 
pentance from sin is only the first step at the 
beginning of a better life. Conversion of the 
motive is profoundly important; but the 



PATIENCE 89 

Christian life is far more than mere conver- 
sion. We are converted to grow stronger 
and better. The deepest convictions of sin 
come to those who are the most pure. The 
clearer our apprehension of God's infinite 
patience the more ugly will our spirit of im- 
patience appear. A frown seen upon our 
faces by an angel's vision must seem worse 
to him than would the breaking of the ten 
commandments seem to us ; so far more 
keenly sensitive is his sinless nature above 
our own. The purest hope will not undo the 
necessity of this larger virtue, patience. 

Patience, like charity, begins at home. If 
the person is undisturbed within he will be 
little moved by things outside. A cloud in 
the sky will float over two persons, the one 
finding fault, the other calm and thankful. 
The difference is in the men, not in the 
cloud. The summer's sun finds some com- 
plaining and others peaceful; the secret of 
difference is not in the sun. Outside provo- 
cations will likewise have little effect upon 



90 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

those who are right themselves. Unruffled 
dispositions are not easily disturbed by un- 
kindness or assaults of others. There are 
many who have more to contend with in 
their own dispositions personally than with 
whole regiments of people outside. Patience 
is largely a personal matter. 

Still there are provocations from without. 
There are severe and unlooked-for disap- 
pointments. There are sad partings. Our 
bearing under these will largely indicate how 
patient we are; and the degree of our pa- 
tience will indicate how great or how little is 
our trust. Analyze this whole question, and 
the result will compel us to look in upon self 
at last. 

When tempted to impatience, think how 
great is God's patience with us. Since he 
bears with us so kindly, it is but our duty to 
bear the same kindness toward others. How 
hard to carry this principle out ! 

Patience means suffering; this is its der- 
ivation from its Latin verb. The suffering 



PATIENCE 91 

continues all the while. If the occasion or 
cause is removed, there is no need of patience. 
Patience means suffering under what we are 
called to bear. It is much easier to have 
faith than patience; more natural to have 
hope than to suffer for such a hope. 

We may apply this meaning to the home 
of sorrow. Patience remembers; feels the 
agony there is in the silent rooms ; recalls the 
past. If the sorrow did not press heavily, 
there would be no call for suffering. Pa- 
tience is suffering ; it is the burden of aching 
hearts. It is not rebellious. It does not 
dull the aching grief. It suffers on, in loving 
confidence and trust.' It never, never forgets. 
It keeps to itself night and day the name for 
which it suffers. It never forgets the beau- 
tiful life that has given a radiance to the 
home in which the sufferers remain. 

The more common affairs of life also de- 
mand patience. The poor have need of it, to 
keep them from giving up in despair. The 
rich need it, to give courage against the 



92 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

thousand annoyances on every side. Those 
high in position need it, to hold them up 
against a surrender of their trusts in the line 
of duty. It is the assurance that success will 
come. There is a French proverb that says, 
'' He who does not tire, tires adversity. All 
comes right to him who can wait.** Patience 
is heroism. 

It is sometimes worth while to take a view 
of a subject from its opposite side. Impa- 
tience is an argument in favor of the virtue it 
breaks. It bears the mark of unbelief and 
doubt. It indicates that there is no rest 
upon God. It reveals a weakness unworthy 
our nature. It is childish for men to fret and 
complain. It is pitiable to see those appa- 
rently strong lose the guidance of reason. 

The power of religion is better seen through 
patience than through love. While saying 
this we do not forget the difference in the na- 
tures of men. There are those of phlegmatic 
temperaments who might almost go to sleep 
under severe annoyances; these are not 



PATIENCE 93 

models; they have little sensibility. The 
power of divine grace is not recognized 
between men so much as between the two 
conditions of the same man, that of unbelief 
and that of faith. More grace is demanded to 
keep one of quick and over-sanguine tempera- 
ment quiet and patient than for another who 
has no specially impatient temperament to 
combat. What grace will make of the disso- 
lute Bunyan or the blasphemous John Newton 
is the test ; not at all is it the question whether 
it will make the two behave just alike. It 
takes divine grace, however, to keep the 
average man from fretting; but the fretting 
reveals the lack. 

It is our lack of faith that would allow our 
burdens to gain the advantage over us. As 
children of God we must exercise our lives in 
patience, and thus declare our abiding trust 
in him. 



V 
SYMPATHY 



95 



Patience and sympathy compared. — Sympathy greater 
than pity. — Sympathy more than compassion. — The **prod- 
igal son." 

Sympathy and compassion illustrated by recent cholera 
scourge in Naples. — Desperation of the sufferers ; hatred 
shown those free from the scourge. — Greek nobleman and 
King Humbert. 

Great character gives sympathy. — Christ's path thronged 
with sufferers. — Parable of the good Samaritan; its char- 
acters. 

Deepest wounds not bandaged. — Anger back of words and 
knives the same. — Jericho road girdles the globe; avenues 
cover it; mansions built over it. — Sufferers in luxurious 
surroundings. 

Sympathy proportioned to degree of degradation. — 
Prosperity calls for congratulation; adversity for sym- 
pathy. — Cause of degradation no excuse for refusal to 
give sympathy. — Prisoners need it; the sick also. 

Sympathy proportioned to the helplessness of its ob- 
ject. — Multitudes helpless. — No question as to gratitude in 
return. — Cowardice to shun the object of suffering. 

Sympathy means restoration of the lost. — Declares the 
worth of its object. — ** Image of God, not a worm." — Value 
depends upon environment. — Prodigal lost because away 
from his natural environment. — Not reasonable to make 
great exertions for worthless things. — Sacrifice for gold. — 
The divine Sacrifice declares human worth in God's sight. — 
Loss of jewel in watch destroys its usefulness; lost. — 
Drunkard father lost to his family. 

Convict in woman's prison. — Living sympathy demanded. 



96 




SYMPATHY 

SHE fact of human suffering is woven 
into two common, plain words, '* pa- 
tience " and *' sympathy.*' Had 
there been no torn and disturbed hearts the 
world would never have coined them. Pa- 
tience denotes the bearing of personal suffer- 
ings; sympathy, bearing the sufferings of 
others. Burke defines sympathy as a sort 
of substitution. Patience means our own 
burdens; sympathy, suffering with others 
who are burdened. 

Sympathy is far greater than pity. Pity 

conducts itself as superior to its object. Pity 

looks on and observes what it has never 

suffered ; sympathy walks with the suffering. 

97 



98 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

Pity looks down ; sympathy goes down. Pity 
can stand afar off; but sympathy stands by 
the side of its object. Pity may even have 
contempt for its object; but sympathy never. 
Even compassion may carry with it a cer- 
tain superiority over the object compas- 
sionated; yet compassion means a deep 
tenderness of feeHng for another. Sym- 
pathy, however, is more than compassion. 
Compassion alone is not enough. In the 
masterly drawn picture of the prodigal son, 
the father is represented as '' having com- 
passion on him.'' But, with a rare touch of 
descriptive power, the father not only ^^ saw 
his son " and '' had compassion on him,'' but 
he *' ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed 
him " ; this is sympathy. It is not only a 
deep tenderness for others, but putting one's 
self into their position and circumstances. 
Sympathy allows no lines of separation be- 
tween ourselves and those we would help; it 
illustrates a perfect equality of condition as 
regards the suffering. 



SYMPATHY 99 

The difference between compassion and 
sympathy has been illustrated in a recent 
terrible scourge of the cholera in Naples. 
The deathly plague was confined to the filthi- 
est sections of the city. An English physician 
describes the resentment of the people toward 
those who would give them help. Among the 
would-be benefactors was a Greek nobleman 
whose generosity was equal to his great 
kindness of heart. Day by day this noble- 
man went himself from house to house dis- 
tributing broths and luxuries and medicines 
for the sick. To overcome their strange 
resentment he was compelled to hire them 
to take what his pity and compassion had 
provided. 

The resentment grew continually deeper 
until, angered because he was able to relieve 
their wants, they assaulted him, killed his 
horses, broke his carriage into pieces, and al- 
most succeeded in taking his life. Out from 
that plague-stricken district rose the hoarse 
cries of desperate hatred toward those living 



100 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

in the better portions of the city. They 
actually planned to carry their dead inside 
the mansions of the rich, that they might 
laugh when the victims of the plague should 
be carried from the homes where plenty and 
health were abundant. They determined to 
sweep the city with the dreadful pestilence. 

Officers of the government were stationed 
where the awful threats proceeded, but even 
the government came near failure. The mob 
were almost in possession of means and power 
to carry out these threatenings against the 
city, when King Humbert came down from 
Rome. The wretched people hated the rich 
in Naples ; but the king was also rich. They 
begrudged the health of the nobles; but 
Humbert was in good health. They hated 
those higher in position; but here among 
them was the one highest of all. He may 
have had no kinder heart than many Hving 
on the hill of the city. Yet they ran to him 
with their sorrows; they stood with bowed 
heads when he entered their poverty-stricken 



SYMPATHY 101 

dwellings; they hushed their own meanings 
in his presence. 

The secret of the king's power is thus 
depicted by the physician whom we quote : 
'' He came among them as one of themselves. 
He shared their dangers. He spent his days 
in their poor hovels. He spoke to them in 
their own Neapolitan patois. He nursed 
their sick. He held them in his arms when 
they were dying. He wept over them when 
they w^ere dead. He was their brother in their 
sorrow, and they were ready to do his bidding 
like little children.'' 

The Greek benefactor showed compassion 
and pity; the king had sympathy. The 
Greek kept himself somewhat apart from 
them, even In his bountiful kindness; but 
the king dwelt with them and was one of 
them. No reflection shall fall upon the gen- 
erosity of the nobleman who suffered at their 
hands ; but the perfect sympathy of Humbert 
conquered their bitter hatred and violence. 
Compassion and pity looked down from the 



102 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 



heights of Naples; sympathy came down 
from the palace in Rome. Sympathy is a 
master in assuaging bitter anguish and calm- 
ing fierce hearts. Mere pity degrades. Pity 
may do for brutes ; but men need sympathy. 
This is godlike. 

Irrespective of the varying conditions of 
life, that character is of greatest value that 
seeks to give rather than to receive sym- 
pathy. The great Teacher was '' touched 
with the feeling of our infirmities.'' His 
whole example was that of one doing every- 
thing for others. Nothing moved him as did 
suffering. His path could be traced by the 
flocking together of the poor and halt and 
maimed and blind. Sympathy means an ac- 
tual realization of the golden rule, doing unto 
others as we would that they should do unto 
us. It means the spirit of Sir Philip Sidney, 
passing to another the cup of cold water with 
his dying hand, and uttering his memorable 
words : '* Thy necessity is yet greater than 



^ 



SYMPATHY 103 

mine." The real sympathetic Hfe will give, 
even though it may not receive. 

No such exquisite and comprehensive pic- 
ture of sympathy has ever been given as that 
drawn by the great Teacher in the parable of 
the good Samaritan. Its outlines cover both 
the giving and the receiving of help. It de- 
lineates in imperishable colors each disap- 
pointing character. There lies the helpless 
man, wounded and in pain. Its actors are 
men, and not dead Orientals. The passions 
of life breathe in the varying moods of its 
characters. It is a picture whose setting is the 
world and not the narrow Jericho road. It 
belongs to crowded highways everywhere as 
truly as upon that desolate path. It points 
out what so-called ''good men'' may not do 
in the line of duty, and what '' bad men '' may 
do. It reflects the results of suffering upon 
individual character. 

We may almost listen to the footsteps of 
the coming travelers, as did the waiting 



104 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

sufferer. Perhaps the languid eyes saw that 
the man approaching in the distance was a 
priest. Hope dawned in the heavy heart. 
Fresh from sacrificial duties in the temple, 
the wounded man must have looked to him for 
help. But this '' religious '' man cast a glance 
upon the sufferer and then passed on ; his re- 
treating footsteps faded gradually away until 
nothing was heard but the sighing of the 
wind in the trees of palm, unless it were the 
sound of the sufferer's moans. 

Soon another traveler approached; it was 
the Levite. His lips were accustomed to 
chant the holy psalms and anthems of the 
temple service. Assemblies had wept over 
the plaintiveness of his notes. His daily 
songs were of One who should heal the 
broken-hearted and relieve the distressed. 
Again there was hope for the wounded 
sufferer, who might rightly imagine that de- 
liverance was at hand; but again the doom 
of disappointment. The telling words carry 
a freight of meaning in them : '' He came 



SYMPATHY 105 

and looked on him, and passed by on the 
other side." Are human hopes thus blasted? 
Are human hearts thus cold and unfeeling? 
Are the priests and Levites all dead? 

Again the silence is broken, this time by 
the hurried, measured tread of a burdened 
beast. The rider is in haste. No hope here 
— the traveler is an enemy. The nations of 
the two have no dealings with each other. 
Poor neighbors! But the traveler stops his 
beast ; dismounts at first sight of the wounded 
man ; sets about caring for him ; and hope 
that was banished returns. The last man 
from whom to expect hope is the first to 
give it. How many times the like has been 
repeated in human experience who can re- 
count? Sympathy does not always come 
from those who have called themselves friends 
in the past. When the once prosperous meet 
adversity, havoc strikes away many a false 
friendship. 

Deepest wounds are not those that ban- 
dages can cover. Broken hearts cause deeper 



106 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

sufferings than broken bones. Worse bruises 
are made by the thoughtless than ever rob- 
ber's club has inflicted. A malicious word 
can cut deeper than any knife. It is not the 
implement that inflicts the suffering, but the 
motive behind it. Anger back of the word 
is as cruel as anger behind the knife. There 
is hardship enough in every life without add- 
ing to it ; enough wounds without adding to 
their smarting pains. 

It is strange how many towns there are 
on the Jericho road. It seems to girdle the 
globe. So many have been beaten, wounded, 
and robbed, so many indifferent to the suf- 
ferings of life, that one questions where the 
Jericho road is not. Its paths have been mac- 
adamized into beautiful streets and avenues ; 
but underneath fine pavements it still remains. 
Cellars have been dug right over it; elegant 
mansions reared upon lasting foundations; 
richest rugs have been laid upon floors 
of exquisite finish ; golden mirrors reflect 
the sumptuous furnishings of tapestries and 



SYMPATHY 107 

silks. The sufferers may recline upon elegant 
couches, but the Jericho road is there never- 
theless. Silken pillows cannot soothe the 
wounded any more than can the rough 
stones of the highway itself. 

Builders of warehouses have blindly dug 
deep foundations without seeing how straight 
the same road runs beneath them. Counting- 
rooms have been finished in richest woods; 
huge safes have been rolled into their places; 
vaults for greater safety have been cemented 
into security just where the Jericho road has 
its bounds. The merchant in luxurious office, 
counting and sorting bonds of millions, may 
be only the sufferer of the Jericho road trans- 
ferred from the outside into the room — a 
sufferer all the while. Wherever there is a 
sufferer there runs, close beneath, the Jericho 
road that Christ pictured for all coming 
centuries to behold. 

The philosophy of sympathy rests upon 
certain great facts. 

Sympathy is proportioned to the degree of 



108 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

the degradation. It belongs to those in ad- 
versity. It is demanded in the line of suffer- 
ing. It was when the multitudes were weary 
and faint that Christ had compassion on them. 
Prosperity calls for congratulation ; adversity 
for sympathy. 

We are never to inquire into the cause of 
the degradation before rendering the needed 
help. The criminal, for example, belongs 
rightly in the prison; yet his wilful acts do 
not excuse us from carrying out the teaching 
of the Master to visit him. Agony of disease 
follows the profligate ; strongest opiates may 
scarcely deaden the horrid convulsions; it is 
the consequence of wilful guilt that knew 
no shame ; yet the cause of the degradation 
does not excuse from the divine words that 
are to be spoken : '' I was sick, and ye visited 
me not." Our college settlements in the 
heart of the slums are Christ-like. The 
prodigal's degradation only deepened the 
compassion and sympathy of the father. 

Sympathy is proportioned to the helplessness 



SYMPATHY 109 

of its object. It is the divine rule to do for 
those who cannot recompense again. The 
most helpless being that comes into the 
world is the little child; and if for a single 
generation all motherly sympathy should be 
suppressed, there would no longer be an im- 
mortal being on the globe. But there is 
other helplessness than infantile weakness. 
People large in stature may be just as de- 
pendent as the little child. Many a strong 
man has stood dazed and bewildered. Each 
life has had its seasons w^hen it knew not 
which way to turn. 

We are to be feet for the lame, speech for the 
dumb, hands for the maimed. We are never 
to ask whether the recipient will be grateful. 
Better yet that our left hand know not to- 
ward whom our right hand was stretched. 
We may not always inquire just how much 
of the suffering has come from negligence or 
lack of thrift. Real suffering, according to its 
depth, merits sympathy in return. The ob- 
ject by the Jericho road must be cared for 



110 



INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 



according to our ability. It is treachery to 
duty to leave such care to others. It is 
cowardice to shun the path that robbers of 
happiness frequent, lest we may be called 
upon to deny ourselves for their sake. 

Sympathy means the restoration of the lost. 
Its positive side is in the good it does be- 
cause of the worth of its object. There is 
an old adage that man is a worm; but the 
'' image of God ^* is not a worm. The coin 
that is lying lost in the desert is worth no 
more than the worthless sands on which it 
shines. Its value depends upon its environ- 
ment. The sheep on the mountain has no 
more commercial value than the scanty, 
worthless mosses on which he feeds. The 
prodigal, cast out and despised, is worse than 
useless ; he is a curse to the community ; his 
pitiable condition, eating husks, makes even 
heathen despise him; but the real worth of 
the man depends upon getting home again as 
a dutiful son. 

It is not reasonable to make great exer- 



SYMPATHY 111 

tions for worthless things. Men have rushed 
across the continent to dig gold; but they 
would not go across the street to dig sand, if 
there were no value in it. Thousands upon 
thousands have left home and its comforts to 
brave the perils of frontier life in order to 
gather in diamond-fields the shining bril- 
liants. It is the object of value that compels 
the exertion. 

The whole drift of Scripture leads us to 
see how God has respected the splendid 
worth of man, provided he can be brought 
into the environment for which he is fitted. 
The gospel of Christ miust be declared in 
all the w^orld, wherever there can be found a 
single creature. The immense duty indicates 
human worth. No such message would be 
sent to mere worms. The gospel is the 
expression of the divine sympathy. The 
greater the degree of the expression the 
larger is the value indicated in the one 
sought. 

The watch in our pocket may lose its use 



112 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

simply from the displacement of a single 
jewel. So far as indicating the hour of the 
day, it may as well be a stone on the high- 
way. The drunkard has befogged and dulled 
his reason; the man is lost. He ought to 
care for his children ; but they have lost their 
father. He ought to advance the interests of 
the community; but he hinders them; he is 
a lost citizen. Until the jewel is replaced in 
the watch it is useless. Until the drunkard 
is restored to his right mind he has not the 
value to his home even of a dog to watch it. 

Sympathy sees multitudes bewildered and 
lost; hears the moans of those who are not 
what they might have been in life ; and then 
seeks their uplifting. It is a positive virtue 
that each one must exercise. 

Upon the wall of a woman's prison hangs 
a picture of Christ before the woman who 
was convicted of her deep guilt. Against 
her traces of sin the face of the Master mani- 
fests its dignity and love. He is represented 
as giving her a new hope. Under the picture 



SYMPATHY 113 

are the memorable words, '' Go, and sin no 
more." Some years ago one of the most in- 
tractable of the prisoners was seen to remain at 
the close of the prayer-service. It was the 
suspicion of the matron as she watched the 
hardened face that some new trouble was 
brewing. Upon asking her reason for remain- 
ing alone, the guilty, degraded woman made 
the strange request that she might be put in 
the solitary cell. The uplifted eyes of the cul- 
prit were still upon the picture. The matron 
reminded her that she had but just come 
from a week's confinement in the desolate 
cell. '' I want to go and be alone," said 
the woman, '' where I can think about Him 
that is in the picture." For a week she 
was permitted to carry out her resolute desire, 
when she came out from the solitude to 
serve the rest of her sentence. The old 
look of hatred was gone; her deportment 
was above all criticism. She served her sen- 
tence and left the prison, living ever after an 
upright and pure life. 



114 



INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 



True sympathy in the heart will manifest 
itself outwardly. There is a gospel in the 
human face when the gospel is back of it. 
That living power should be mightier than 
painter's skill in depiction. Greater than 
such skill on canvas should be the transform- 
ing power in us to inspire those who have 
lost faith in the reality of a holy life. Sym- 
pathy in action has a mightier power than 
highest art can gain or can paint on canvas. 
We must be living witnesses of this living 
power. 



VI 
COMFORT 



"5 



Comfort more than compassion and sympathy. — Courage 
more important than pity. — Physician between courage and 
pity. — Business troubles. — Comfort means giving strength 
to the man, not relieving him of his burdens. — Comfort is a 
power given one under adversity. — Greatness, not in avoid- 
ing hardships, but in bearing them. — Illustrated by Felicitas 
and her seven sons. 

God our Comforter, Inspirer. — Severity of disciples' lives 
pointed out by Christ; needed no pity, but strength. — God 
did not take away one of their hard duties. — Comfort is 
courage to face the storm. — Value of this life in the good it 
does. — Savonarola and Luther in heavy labors. 

Human comforters. — Paul's teaching. — Edifying men. — 
Strengthening needed from infancy to old age. — Webster 
and Napoleon ridiculed. — Great natures help. 

Small men can destroy work of great artisans. — The 
young need strengthening or comfort. 

God comforts that we may comfort others. — Paul's ex- 
perience. — The beautiful seen in what has been accom- 
plished through storms. — One who cannot stand without 
receiving comfort cannot give it. 

Universal need of receiving comfort. — Suffering universal. 
— Strongest men will grow infirm. — Every hero in the " roll- 
call of faith" needed strengthening. — Grisi and Jenny 
Lind. 

Comfort in making the anchor of the ship ; made for use. 



ii6 



VI 



COMFORT 




^LL men seek comfort. The word 
means far more than compassion or 
pity. Pity tends to discourage; 
comfort to strengthen. Compassion leads to 
sympathy ; but even sympathy may depress. 
Pity given the sufferer would inspire no 
hope. Courage is a thousand times more 
important than the kindest commiseration in 
all conditions. Let the time come when 
business is slow ; creditors are pushing hard ; 
every energy is taxed to tide over the 
emergency ; it is a hard struggle. What, at 
such a time, would be the effect of express- 
ing pity? It would indicate the impression 
of distrust on the other's part. Rather, at 
117 



118 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

such a time, a word of courage is worth a 
volume of sentiment. 

Comfort means ''to strengthen/' The 
physician who should merely pity his patient 
would kill him. Disease may leave but one 
hope in a hundred for life. Shall the physi- 
cian give ninety-nine hundredths in pity and 
one stray hope of comfort? The skilful ex- 
pert fastens the sufferer's attention upon that 
one trembling chance ; he drives back every 
thought possible in the ninety-nine adverse 
conditions; he sheds no tear of sympathy, 
and will keep from the room those who 
should thus despair. The strengthened cour- 
age in that one hope has saved many a life. 

The man of business feels the pressure of 
nervous creditors. It is not the time yet to 
realize the value of his assets. A few thou- 
sands would save him his credit and carry 
him safely over. His books show a credit of 
half a miUion ; but he is a victim of the times. 
He needs not the pity of other men who 
have failed under like circumstances; he 



COMFORT 119 

means to keep his credit and his business. 
Let there come to him in this pinch one who 
has successfully endured just such a strain, 
and one ounce of courage would be worth a 
thousand tons of pity. 

This is the meaning of comfort. It puts 
strength into one who is struggling on in the 
line of his duty. The business man might 
wish his neighbor would advance the small 
amount that would give relief in tiding him 
over; yet a word that would give him 
strength to do for himself would be of 
greater value than thousands of dollars. 
Comfort means giving strength to the man, 
rather than giving that which would save 
him the exercise of his strength. 

The Apostle does not teach that God gives 
comfort by removing the stake in the flesh,' 
but by giving help to bear its sting. It is 
not his method to give comfort by removing 
trials, but by giving strength to bear them. 
It may mean the parent watching over the 
weak and suffering child. All the world's 



120 



INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 



brightness may seem centered in that one 
life. Giving comfort may not mean the 
restoration of the sufferer to health, but a 
divinely imparted power to be a hero under 
the terrible strain of anguish. Paul's comfort 
did not consist in avoiding hardships, but in 
overcoming them. The word does not mean 
''to soothe'* or ''console.'* It has in it the 
inspiration of a bugle summoning to rise 
above the conflict. It spurs on to death, if 
necessary, in the line of duty. 

Early Christian history records the scene 
in which a wealthy widowed mother, Felicitas, 
and her seven sons were summoned before 
Publius, and were commanded, under penalty 
of death, to renounce the name of Christ. 
Her eldest son was whipped with thongs 
until life was nearly gone. " Renounce the 
name and live,*' said the officer, when the 
aged mother bade her son stand fast and live 
in glory. Under the furious blows of the 
whip he sank into death. In her tortured 
presence her next two sons were beaten with 



COMFORT 121 

clubs, while her voice bade them remember 
Him who died for them rather than yield to 
brutish command. The fourth was taken 
from her embrace and flung from the rock 
near which they stood. The other three, one 
by one, were beheaded, while to each her 
words of courage were true to her faith. 
This was more than courage ; it was comfort. 
It was a strengthening for duty; urging a 
heroism she herself at last exemplified in 
bearing her own torture until her head fell 
under the blow of the knife. 

Comfort holds up the feeble hands, and 
boldly faces even hardships and death. Some 
of the world's greatest sufferers have a com- 
fort that keeps them strong in spite of the 
staggering blows that have befallen them. 

This word expresses more than mere human 
deeds. It draws its meaning from God him- 
self, as the Comforter. Paul declares that the 
comfort of God is given '' that we may be 
able to comfort them that are in any 
affliction.*' We are to give the comfort that 



122 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

we get. We are to strengthen others as we 
have been strengthened. There is divinity in 
the meaning of this word. 

In order to a truer conception of the virility 
in this duty, we observe not only our relations 
to God, but also to one another. Our duty 
and its meaning are covered and explained in 
the message of Christ to his disciples. The 
whole address was a superb inspiration. 
They should not be comfortless as orphans; 
nor should they be left alone. More stirring 
words were never spoken; and never were 
men in deeper darkness or in sorer need. 
What Christ meant in the term we must 
accept. 

Notice the application of the address and 
the event to human necessities : 

First, t/te divine Comforter, This was the 
description of the Holy Ghost; not a mere 
consoler of homesick men, but an inspirer of 
their great work. Christ held before his dis- 
ciples the severity of their mission. They 
were to be dragged before magistrates ; they 



COMFORT 123 

were to suffer persecution; the world that 
crucified him was to put them to death. 
Such was the forecast ; but they were prom- 
ised the Comforter. Did they need pity 
because of sufferings? They never asked it, 
and Christ never pitied them. They knew that 
the promised success of the new faith would 
madden the great church whose high priest 
had sanctioned the murder of Christ. It 
would be dangerous to preach the words he 
bade them preach. The advent of a Saul of 
Tarsus, imprisoning and killing the innocent, 
could be only a natural result of the new 
gospel they should declare. 

Hence they needed comfort from the Com- 
forter. His office-work was not to take 
away the severe duties, not to excuse them 
from proclaiming a single doctrine, but to 
strengthen them in these hard things. Com- 
fort did not mean singing them to sleep, but 
inspiring them to grander exertions in the 
mighty work of turning the world upside 
down. The comfort of God means the cour- 



124 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

age to face the storm ; never to flinch even in 
the presence of Herod or Agrippa. 

The value of this Hfe does not consist in 
the ease in which it is carried through, but in 
the amount of good it does. The labors of a 
Savonarola are herculean, requiring not pity, 
but strength from God ; but his work must 
be done. The work of a Luther is impera- 
tive ; the overthrow of superstition demands 
such a giant; but in the gigantic work the 
battle-hymn of the fatherland was the indica- 
tion of the source of Luther's power : '' God 
is our Refuge and Strength.'' This was but 
another way of expressing what Paul said: 
*' I can do all things through Christ which 
strengtheneth me." 

Secondly, human comforters. This is Paul's 
conviction as to the duty of all : ''That we may 
be able to comfort them that are in any afflic- 
tion, through the comfort wherewith we our- 
selves are comforted of God." In a word, as 
God strengthens us, we must strengthen one 
another. Our highest duty is not to have pity, 



COMFORT 125 

nor to exercise compassion, but to give 
strength. Paul seemed to look upon every 
one he met as needing to be builded up. 
Notice how often he speaks of edifying men. 
For such a work he adapted himself to every 
one. This is the scriptural method. You 
cannot build men up by the mass, but one 
by one. This is accomplished only by adding 
to their strength. 

This is the only kind of life worth living. 
There is nothing more debasing than its op- 
posite. There are those who make sport of 
the ways of little children, raising a laugh at 
their expense. Is that adding strength to 
the little ones? Youth struggles upward 
through an awkward age ; habits may not 
seem cultured; movements may sometimes 
be ungainly ; thoughts may lack finish in 
expression ; diffidence may obscure the real 
metal of character within. Youth needs 
encouragement and strengthening in its pur- 
pose; yet there are multitudes who give no 
help. They criticize where they ought to 



126 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

help ; they laugh where they should encour- 
age; they cry down where they should lift 
up. Townsmen used to joke over Webster's 
ungainliness ; but in the passing of a few 
years, when the farmers of Salisbury were 
still hoeing weeds, the young man against 
whom they had raised a laugh was holding 
a nation enchanted with the display of his 
magnificent powers, cultivated in spite of 
them. The aristocrats of his neighborhood 
cast ridicule upon Napoleon in his youth be- 
cause of the plainness of his dress and his 
poverty; yet, acting upon his maxim, ''A 
career open to talent,'' he outweighed in his 
person all the rest of France in its most criti- 
cal hour. The world at last gives honor only 
to those who have inspiringly helped others. 
No one of great nature ridicules the weak or 
undeveloped. Paul saw uncouth natures ris- 
ing out from heathenism and recognized his 
duty to help them to the highest usefulness. 
Is our duty less? 

A hod-carrier can deface a statue it has 



COMFORT 127 

taken a Michael Angelo to create. Vandals 
have destroyed some of the finest specimens 
of art the world has ever known. There is 
not a successful man of prominence to-day 
who has not achieved his success in spite of 
those who would pull him down. In mer- 
cantile, professional, and literary life the 
rule has obtained. Small natures try to 
hurt others; great, noble natures try to 
build others up. It required the heroism of 
Nehemiah to build the walls of the city of 
his fathers; but while he was building San- 
ballat became infamous in his meanness, try- 
ing to keep the walls from being finished. 
No patriotism, no grandeur of life and pur- 
pose, in Nehemiah's mean critic! 

Look upon our young people in their en- 
deavors to fit themselves for a larger useful- 
ness; every one ought to receive help from 
each of us. There is not one doing a com- 
mendable work but needs the loyal help of 
all who love our Lord and Master. There 
is not one struggling to become better who 



128 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

does not need our encouragement ; never our 
neglect. 

While giving comfort is our duty, it never- 
theless remains true that the duty is not al- 
ways done. Paul says that God gives us 
this comfort that we may give comfort to 
others. God strengthens us that we may 
give strength. He inspires us that we may 
inspire. Everything is done through the 
comfort wherewith we ourselves are com- 
forted of God. The greatest characters of 
the race seem to have missed this human 
help. Aaron and Hur did once hold up 
Moses' hands ; but how many times they left 
him alone! In time of Paul's deepest need 
he experienced what he afterward wrote 
down: "No man stood with me.'* One 
may need that on which he does not depend. 
Some of the world's greatest benefactors have 
died, as did Beethoven, with the question on 
their lips, '' Have I not some talent after all ? " 
The ruggedest tree of the forest is that which 
the tempests of a thousand years cannot break. 



COMFORT 129 

The most beautiful ship of the ocean is not 
the one of freshest paint, or whitest sails, or 
heaviest anchor that has never fluked the 
ocean's bed; but rather it is that monster, 
resting at the end of the stormy voyage, 
whose paint has been scraped by the ice 
it has tossed back; whose sails have been 
stretched and blackened by tempests ; whose 
decks have been swept by the hurricane that 
could not engulf its freight of a thousand 
souls; whose anchor bears signs of the im- 
mense grip it held against hurricane and 
angry seas, below where deep-sea fishes 
swim. Every one, like that ship, is measured 
by what he endures alone. The agonies of 
Gethsemane were met by the divinely given 
strength ; but even more than in this angehc 
ministry the divine character breathes in those 
utterly desolate words : '' My God, my God, 
why hast thou forsaken me?" No one can 
give comfort who cannot stand without it, if 
necessary. Though all men forsook Paul, the 
Lord stood with him, 



130 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

Thirdly, the universal need of comfort. 
Even Christ needed the companionship of 
the three disciples in Gethsemane, and needed 
the strength the angel gave. In a higher 
sense, however, we need comfort as a giving 
of strength. The saddest phase of personal 
biography is that written by the wisest king. 
No one is strong enough to tread the earth 
alone. The comfort of God does not release 
from the necessity for us to give comfort. 
From the nature of man suffering is universal. 
No home escapes it, and no one. It may not 
fall upon all alike at the same time, but the 
haughty spirit will some time bend, the loving 
heart will almost break, the strongest men 
will grow infirm. Such is the sad, the uni- 
versal law. Some one may suffer to-day, 
but somebody's turn will come next. The 
comfort we give to-day we may crave for our- 
selves to-morrow. There is not a hero in all 
the ''roll-call of faith'' but needed strength- 
ening. The life of all is some time darkened. 
A tear is expression of heavy, bitter grief; 



COMFORT 131 

but tears are too many to be counted. 
Struggles are the order of the day ; no one 
succeeds who does not struggle ; and those 
struggling need strengthening. Suffering 
everywhere. Troubles crowd the joys. Each 
household in its turn is touched. The strong- 
est men wend their ways lonely and bereaved. 
Great need is there that out from all these 
troubles and all this darkness One should 
speak: '' I am the God of all comfort.'' See 
what the Comforter made of the disciples, 
turning their cowardice into boldness without 
a discount. See the cringing Peter, afraid of 
the laughter of the servants, and emphasizing 
his fear by blasphemy, only to become the 
herald of Pentecost in ushering in the Chris- 
tian church. See the Twelve who had fled in 
terror on the crucifixion day ever afterward 
ready to face men — that meant facing death 
itself. The receiving of comfort is the re- 
ceiving of strength to help others. Bear 
witness, ye whose hearts have been torn 
with sorrows; only they who have known 



132 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

strength given in suffering can impart strength 
of comfort. The brilliant jurist, William Wirt, 
was made a Christian by one of his slaves ; so 
in sorrows it is not the dignity of station, nor 
the degree of learning, nor the brilliancy of 
acquirements, but the suffering hearts that 
give us strength and hope. 

A little incident in the life of Grisi, upon 
first meeting Jenny Lind, illustrates the 
power of the same heart for scorn or for com- 
fort. It was in the presence of the royal 
household of Britain. By command of the 
queen each was to sing. The impulsive blood 
of the tropics was to be met by the favorite 
of the northern kingdom. Haughty with her 
brilliant triumphs, the Italian face of Grisi re- 
flected her contempt of the gentle girl beside 
her. The proud daughter of Italy chilled 
the confiding heart of the '' nightingale of 
Sweden." She had not learned the pro- 
found secret underlying the strength of char- 
acter in the greatest of the prophets : '' He 
must increase, but I must decrease/' 



COMFORT 133 

The young singer took her place with 
trembhng before the royal audience, only to 
shrink in fear before the scorn of the one who 
should have given courage. The accom- 
panist had struck the opening chords, and 
in the breathless expectation all were sur- 
prised to see Jenny Lind turn and request 
him to rise. The music she was to sing she 
laid one side. Seating herself at the instru- 
ment with downcast gaze, she swept its keys 
with sweetest, gentlest touch. In another 
moment she breathed forth in song a sim- 
ple prayer of her childhood. The Hearer of 
the singer was a greater than Victoria. The 
agony of the hour made her petition vocal 
with plaintive pleadings. As she lifted her 
face toward heights her prayer was reaching, 
the silence, except of her voice, seemed almost 
vocal with angelic notes. No strains like these 
had ever before been heard in the royal hall. 
She did not look upon Grisi or upon the queen 
and the royal family. She was the lonely girl 
of Sweden amid the royal pomp and splendor. 



134 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

Not once did Grisi take her gaze from the 
young girl — not even to catch the absorbing 
fascination expressed by the queen. Upon 
the dark eyelashes of the Italian tears stood 
like pendent jewels. The flush on her cheeks 
had melted into radiant beauty. Her breath 
was choked back by inarticulate sobs. 

When the singer had ceased her prayer no 
royal applause broke the silence. With an 
impulsiveness like her nature, with eyelashes 
suffused with weeping, with forgetfulness of 
courtly etiquette, Grisi hastened forward to 
draw the beautiful rival within her embrace, 
while she kissed the upturned lips. There 
was admiration in place of scorn, gentleness in 
place of pride. The same heart could scorn 
or comfort, hate or love. 

The refusal to give comfort reveals our 
own base motives, while the desire to render 
help indicates a true character. God has 
made each of us a possible human comforter. 

Comfort results from real excellence and 
strength. The men may be unknown who 



COMFORT 135 

forge the anchor for the ship. Through heat 
and smoke and wearying din the work is car- 
ried on. No flaws are allowed to mar the 
workmanship. A single brush of paint might 
cover up any such defect; but the men are 
doing good work. What if a bubble w^ere 
left in the welding — the owner of the ship 
could not detect it under the paint. 

The huge contrivance is finally transferred 
from the foundry to the ship. There it rests, 
admired by crew and passengers voyage after 
voyage. Perhaps for months it is never 
wetted by the waters of the seas, except as 
they are sweeping the deck in heavy gales. 
The ship holds the monster fabric that was 
made to hold the ship. The men clean it of 
rust as though it were some showy thing, 
until the day of heaviest tempest comes. 
Against winds and mountain waves the 
trembling monarch of the ocean becomes 
a toy, as impotent as the tiny boats that 
childhood sails in glee. It is then the order 
is given to cast from its carriage the long- 



136 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

unused workmanship. In such a moment 
everything depends upon that single anchor. 
The terrific gale tautens the massive cable 
as though It were a thread in more than a 
giant's grasp. In vain the tempest shrieks 
through the cables of the ship as if they were 
strings of some ^olian harp builded by furies. 
The rolling mountain waves lash themselves 
into spray white as the shroud they threaten 
for the tossing ship. Faces of those longing 
for home are almost as colorless as the surfs 
outside. The captain's skill and courage are 
useless ; he only watches in hope. It is the 
conflict of the anchor against the tempest 
and the sea; but the anchor holds. Had 
there been a flaw the splendid ship must have 
sunk to where the anchor held its mighty grip. 
The anchor was the comfort of the ship. 
The comforters were the makers of that flaw- 
less anchor. The comforted were they whom 
the anchor saved. The anchor, like the ship, has 
become a thing of surpassing beauty. There 
is no comfort where there is not strength. 



VII 

INSPIRED TO INSPIRE 



137 



i 



Useless man practically dead. — Self-denial for the sake 
of others the law of life. 

First, world needs inspiring men. — Sheridan at Win- 
chester. 

Secondly, inspiration depends upon our ability to get 
away from self. — All conquest begins with conquest of self. 

Value of each life is in the good done, not in the years 
lived. — Not size of the object that marks the power. 

The weak have inspired the strong. — Children ; invalids ; 
sufferers. — Phillips inspired by his devoted invalid wife. 

Thirdly, the world drops those who withhold help from 
others. — Memory takes care of those worth remembering. 
— Examples. 

The inspiration we have measures how much we shall 
give. — Examples. 

Two sources of inspiration : God and the immortal life. — 
Deniers of God and immortality cannot inspire others. 

We grow toward what we believe. — They who live nearest 
God can lift others nearest him. 

What we have learned in sorrows helps inspire others. — 
Chalmers. — Morrison. — The '* Fresh-air Fund." 



Discipline of life. — God needs inspired men. — Inspired 
lives and inspired writings.— Nothing right is secular. — Life 
worth living. 



138 




VII 

INSPIRED TO INSPIRE 

INSPIRATION is given to inspire. 
We give what we receive. We 
personify for others what we are 
ourselves. The man who is useless is practi- 
cally dead, like water-soaked timber that will 
not burn and that builders will not use. In 
more senses than one ''' no man liveth to 
himself." 

Nature in her abundance has nothing that 
exists for itself alone. Orchards grow to give 
fruit. Gardens bloom in exquisite beauty 
for the race. No one of least intelligence 
imagines that the sun shines for itself. Even 
the moon, dead and burned out, gives light. 
Were the ocean to leave its beaches dry, 
human life could not be sustained upon the 
139 



140 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

globe. Fiercest storms are besoms to sweep 
the atmosphere ; a land without storms of 
wind or rain would be a land of death. Vul- 
tures feeding upon carrion are scavengers of 
health. Insects are guardians against pes- 
tilence. Were our knowledge only broad 
enough we should observe that everything 
God has made is good. Each has its use. 
God is the great utilitarian. 

It is not reasonable to assume that the 
finished work of God reverses this law. Is 
man exempt? Altruism is a terrn as recent 
as the French philosopher Comte ; but its 
principle is as ancient as the race. Must we 
leave consolation of the suffering to voices of 
inanimate flowers? Can we, made in God's 
image, be dumb? Shall we leave the bright- 
ening and refreshing of the needy and deserv- 
ing to the fruits that depend upon the dews 
and rains? Will God excuse our negligence 
of duty? Must all the sunshine in the cham- 
ber of pain come from the sun ? Have we no 
light to shine ? Must trembling hands be left 



INSPIRED TO INSPIRE 141 

to carry their own burdens? Is our strength 
not given to help the weary? 

He whose hand was the first reddened 
with human blood attempted to evade the 
law by his interrogation, ''Am I my brother's 
keeper? " The keen questioner of Christ felt 
the rebound of his own query when the 
Master reversed his words, '' Who is my 
neighbor?" into the personal inquiry, ''Am 
I neighborly?" Parable and direct teaching 
of the great Teacher, cumulative digests of 
apostolic advice, all declare the unmistakable 
necessity laid upon every one to be faithful 
to duty. Our Hght must shine. We must 
do good unto all men. We must bear others* 
burdens. We must go into all the world for 
Christ's sake. Self-denial for the sake of 
others is the law of Christ. 

Notice, first, inspiratio7i as a factor in 
human well-being. We use the term in its 
general sense, not theological. The world 
needs inspired men just as truly as it needs 
the inspired Book. Inspiration is not crea- 



142 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

tion. It is the parent's duty to inspire ; he 
does not create new powers in the child. It 
is the physician's duty to inspire his patient ; 
he does not give strength, but helps the pa- 
tient recover what was sinking lower and 
lower. 

Children take their troubles to the mother 
for the inspiration she shall give. Pupils with 
hard problems go to the teacher, not to have 
him work out the problem, but to give them 
inspiration to work on. People in difficulties 
go to neighbors to get the same stimulat- 
ing help. Sheridan at Winchester, riding his 
foam-swept horse, turned the retreating army 
into victors. He did not receive another 
recruit; the army was strong enough, but 
the hosts needed inspiration. The wife of 
Disraeli bore in silence the torturing pain 
from the careless driver's act of closing the 
carriage door upon her fingers, rather than de- 
press the premier on his way to Parliament. 

We may need inspiration ourselves one 
hour, and be called upon to give inspiration 



INSPIRED TO INSPIRE 143 

to others the next. The individual cannot 
tear himself away from the mutual obligations 
which make such helpfulness imperative. 

Secondly, this inspiration depends upon oicr 
ability to get azvay from self. There is an 
infinite distance between the self-seeking 
man and the man of self-denial. The self- 
seeking man is ever suspicious that others 
will not give him what he imagines he de- 
serves. He is sensitive lest his judgment 
shall be belittled. He who looks out for self 
first makes others' good an inferior matter. 
Real greatness begins as we get away from 
self and selfish desires. 

Reason alike with Scripture emphasizes 
this fact. All true conquest begins with the 
conquest of one's self. Unless we school 
ourselves into obedience to what is right and 
true we cannot lead others into the truth. 
He who does not control himself cannot con- 
trol others. All success begins with personal 
success. No one can be to others what he is 
not in hirnself first He will not harm others 



144 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

until he has first harmed himself. Whatever 
our condition, this principle holds true. 

No amount of labor or depression or sorrow 
can release us from duty. We cannot shut 
duty out by shutting ourselves away from it. 
Our obligations linger with our Hfe. 

Again, the value of our life is not in the 
years, but in the work done. *' How old art 
thou?" is the least important question that 
can be asked. ''What hast thou done?" is 
far greater. The finished life does not always 
tremble with the weight of the years. This 
Republic owes more to Hamilton than to al- 
most any other man; and yet his work was 
finished at the age of forty-seven. Few 
lives have given greater power to the church 
than that of the scholarly missionary, Henry 
Martyn ; but his earthly life was ended at 
thirty-one. The founder of modern missions 
in our churches, Samuel J. Mills, died at 
thirty-five. The consecrated name of Har- 
riet Newell has done more in carrying out 
the last command of the Master to go into 



INSPIRED TO INSPIRE 145 

all the world with the gospel than many a 
veteran has done ; and yet she died at the 
age of nineteen years. 

Life is great or small according to what it 
has done. It is not the size of the object 
that marks the intrinsic power. If we could 
make a buttercup — just one — we could make 
the world. An infinite creative power — the 
same power — is necessarily back of each 
creation. The buttercup demands and de- 
clares the creative power as truly as does the 
swinging world. Life does not consist in 
doing one great thing, but in doing all things 
in the best way. Whether we do large things 
or small, the quality indicates what we are. 

In other words, the truest life is not mea- 
sured by the size or conspicuousness of the 
things done, but by the way of doing them. 
The life is in the doer, not in the thing. The 
cup of cold water will indicate many a great 
life in the fiqal day. The visits to the sick 
or imprisoned will then unfold much of per- 
sonal character. 



INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 



We are not to fall back upon our lack of 
efficiency ; we are simply to use what abilities 
we have at every opportunity. A grateful 
child is a perpetual inspiration to the father 
in his toils and cares. An invalid companion 
has been a constant loving inspiration to 
the one who spares no strength in his care 
for her. The abihty to inspire others does 
not necessarily require great physical strength 
or health. The feeblest sufferer may enthuse 
the popular hero in his unremitting responsi- 
biHties. The name of Phillips has in it the 
luster of immortal fame; yet the inspiration 
because of which he faced mobs unappalled 
came largely from the suffering wife in his 
own home. Threats of burning the house 
over her head did not cause a moment's 
hesitation in her heroic consecration to the 
freedom of which her husband was the re- 
nowned advocate. 

Thirdly, the world drops from memory those 
who forget their kind. People drop those 
who drop them. The world admires dignity, 



INSPIRED TO INSPIRE 147 

but responds to love. It salutes royalty in 
office, but is swayed by royalty of character. 
It does not put itself out for those who are 
bound up in themselves. It recognizes that 
the ruling factor in all society is love; and 
where love is, there is the constant doing for 
others. The real test is, not the magnificence 
of the house in which one lives, but how 
many homes one has made happier. There 
are such philanthropists in every community. 
Their overflowing sympathy is for those who 
suffer. They are always thinking of others. 
Memory takes care of those worth remem- 
bering. The man who forgets others will 
drop out of memory with his burial. A 
good memory depends upon a useful life. 
The world gives its heart only to those 
whose hearts were broad and sympathetic. 
Good deeds inspire remembrance in return. 
Not how much one is to himself, but what 
he is to others, is the test. Not how much 
he gets for himself, but in what measure he 
shares his good things with others — this is 



148 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

the true worth of each. God has so fash- 
ioned us that the infirmities of the honorable 
dead slowly pass back into oblivion, while 
their excellences appear in increasing beauty. 
'' Their works do follow them.'' 

It is impossible to free ourselves frond this 
obligation to help others to the fullest extent 
of our abihty. God has written his purpose 
into our very natures. Reason agrees with 
revelation in confirming this law of our being. 
The total value of our life consists in what 
we shall have done for others. So universal 
is this obHgation that the world drops out 
from its memory those who are comparatively 
useless to its progress. 

Suppose the prophets of God had halted 
in their message; the wheels of progress 
would have gone back. Suppose Garrison 
had kept silence, fearing the mob raging 
around him more than he feared injustice; 
the liberation of a race would have been im- 
periled. Suppose Whittier had turned away 
from the slave to make his verses attractive 



INSPIRED TO INSPIRE 149 

to those whom slaves were serving; where 
would history be? What if the great re- 
formers had abandoned their struggles for 
liberty ; civilization would have been crushed 
under a relentless tyranny. The only lives 
worth the paper on which their names are 
written are of those who have spent their 
energies in self-sacrifice for others' good. 
Commonplace men — men who float with the 
tide of public opinion or of their own ease — 
are beginning to be forgotten with the going 
down of the earHest setting sun. They who 
live for self are dropped from memory when 
the undertaker has finished his work. 

We are not to carry others' burdens that 
they can carry as well as ourselves. True 
helpfulness consists in giving comfort; and 
comfort means giving strength to those who 
are weary by inspiring them when they 
hesitate or fail. 

Confronting such an obligation to helpful- 
ness IS our utter inability of ourselves. We 
can pity, but that will not help. We may 



150 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

show sympathy, but men need far more than 
sympathy. How is such power gained ? We 
cannot inspire others above the inspiration 
we have ourselves received. The inspiration 
of Columbus in a measure inspired his men 
above even their superstitions. The absolute 
conviction of Cyrus W. Field inspired men to 
risk their wealth in a wire touching two con- 
tinents and buried purposely in the ocean. 
Samuel Adams, catching a vision of liberty 
on the bloody field of Lexington, helped 
inspire a continent to achieve its freedom. 
The vision of Paul on the Damascus road 
never grew dim. In the vision he saw the 
coming triumph of a greater than Caesar. 
He was to suffer untold sufferings, but the 
vision was above them. He was to be 
brought before kings, but the vision of the 
greater than Agrippa made him bold. He 
stood among peoples reeking with the vices 
of heathenism ; but the heavenly vision in- 
spired him to inspire them to a nobler life. 
His power lay not in his bodily presence — 



INSPIRED TO INSPIRE 151 

that was weak. It was not in excellence of 
speech — men called that contemptible. His 
marvelous power in rousing cities, in forming 
churches, in fixing the attention of kings, lay 
in his obedience to the heavenly vision and 
the Christ of his faith. The source of inspira- 
tion is outside and above us. 

The strange fascination of Napoleon lay in 
his power to enthuse his army with the glory 
of France. Nelson at Trafalgar led his fleet 
into the battle with the ringing reminder 
that England expected every man in that 
fleet to do his duty. The watchword of 
WelHngton was '' duty " — and duty means 
something higher than the man urging its 
claims. 

The two sources of human power and in- 
spiration are the convictions, God and the 
immortal life. The two belong together. 
They hold above us the greater Being and 
declare an unending life. Men complain of 
the injustice of this life; the assurance of the 
other declares the righting of the wrongs. 



152 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

Sad hearts take up the every-day burdens; 
but the Hfe to come does not subsist upon 
the conditions of this. Aching hearts sigh 
over the departed ; but our loss is their gain. 
It is this conviction of God and immortaHty 
that comforts the poor who struggle for 
bread while the tables of the affluent are 
loaded with more than can be used. Shiver- 
ing honest sufferers gaze wistfully upon furs 
whose warmth might save them from wast- 
ing hectic ; but thoughts of the immortal life 
cheer them on while multitudes pass them 
by unnoticed. Take away from hope these 
two convictions and earth would become a 
bedlam. 

They who deny God and immortality can- 
not inspire others. They may have brilliancy 
of intellect worthy better thoughts; their 
speech may be as coming from lips touched 
with the honey of Hymettus; they may be 
gifted with sympathy tinged with pity; yet 
so long as they know not God, and intimate 
that there is no life beyond this life, they 



INSPIRED TO INSPIRE 153 

cannot inspire the weary and the poor and 
the bereaved. Human nature can become a 
drudge ; it can endure privations ; it can enter 
homes darkened by death. But to inspire 
such as these requires more than mere human 
words from intellects that do not know, and 
guesses from hearts that do not believe. 

We grow toward what we believe. We 
grow up or we grow down, according to the 
objects we follow. Egypt represented her 
deity by beasts, and has sunk back to them. 
Rome made her gods vacillating and coarse ; 
and nothing in the range of her debasing be- 
lief could keep the mighty empire from sink- 
ing back into the dirt. One may dwarf 
himself into a pygmy when he ought to be 
a giant. If it were possible to keep one 
through full-grown manhood wrapped up 
in childish playthings, he might grow to a 
giant's stature, but he would always remain 
a travesty on human nature. 

Thought expands when it sees other villages 
than the one in which it lives. Allegiance to 



154 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

the nation broadens us beyond that which 
comes from allegiance to the State. Plans 
laid involving other continents than the one 
oceans have bounded for our own broaden us 
yet more. The provincial has become a cos- 
mopolitan with his knowledge. 

Remember there are uncounted worlds 
among which this little earth is one. Re- 
member there is another Hfe somewhere. 
Let imagination wing itself to farthest possi- 
ble outreach. The expanding vista broadens 
and deepens the mind and heart that takes it 
in. He who knows God and feels within his 
breast the throbbings of immortal life has 
something by which to inspire and stimu- 
late others to a new purpose. The lever of 
Archimedes, by whose adjustment he prom- 
ised to move the world, cannot compare with 
this power. They who Hve nearest God can 
lift others nearest to him. 

Is it said we are too weak ourselves to 
help ; we are too cast down to inspire ; we 
are too broken-hearted to heal the breaking 



INSPIRED TO INSPIRE 155 

hearts of others ? These are the very reasons 
why we can help and inspire others. Has 
God given you help ? Tell others. Has 
comfort come to your dark hours? Tell 
others where it may be found for them. 
Has there come into your desolation the in- 
finite compassion ? Then stimulate others to 
find for themselves the same strength. If 
the believers of Christ would each begin with 
the first sufferer near them, and continue in 
such a work of inspiration for others, the 
world w^ould take on a new appearance 
within less than twelve months. 

The Christian world has not ceased to 
speak of Chalmers thrilling Scotland and 
Christendom from his Tron parish ; pictures 
of his power are indelibly impressed upon the 
history of the influence of man upon men ; 
yet who can tell us the name of the poor 
woman whose transcendent Christian Hfe gave 
him week after week such inspiration? Yet 
this is history. 

Narrators of what missions have done re- 



156 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

mind of Morrison's devotion to China : preach- 
ing the everlasting gospel, translating into 
the tongue of the empire the Word of God, 
laboring unceasingly with his two watch- 
words — the first, '' It is my duty,'' the second, 
''Look up, look up;'' yet who recalls the 
name of the faithful teacher in the ragged- 
school whose persistence won and inspired 
him to the life of usefulness that monumented 
her love? 

Years ago a lady from the country visited 
a large city near her home. She was an 
invalid, and was touched by the sufferings 
of a little sick child whom she saw in the 
mother's arms in a filthy street. The thought 
came to her, '' Why not take the child and 
its mother to my home?" She gave the 
invitation, which was gladly accepted. From 
the refreshing country life the weary mother 
and child went back well and strong. Some 
of the lady's neighbors, convinced of their 
privilege, followed her example. The next 
summer hundreds of children and their 



INSPIRED TO INSPIRE 157 

mothers were cared for in the same way ; 
the following summer thousands more. 

A neighbor of such a benefactor, poor 
and helpless herself, unable to care for even 
one, said she could at least give others the 
story of the charity. She wrote the account 
in a New York paper. The simple recital in 
the paper caught the attention of a lady of 
wealth, who sent her check for a thousand 
dollars to the editor, initiating the so-called 
''Fresh-air Fund." All over the United 
States, in England, and on the Continent, the 
work of caring for poor children has ever 
since that time been kept up. Had that in- 
valid, as she passed the pale, sickly child, ex- 
cused herself by saying she could not save 
all — '' Why should I trouble myself with 
one?" — how much the world would have 
missed ! 

Inspiration is sympathy put into action. 
It makes the good of others our highest 
motive. It is Christ-like. Its method is to 
allow the divine will full power through us. 



158 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

'* Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil 
the law of Christ/' The inspiration and 
power imparted to each life must be divinely- 
given. We cannot do our work well by- 
leaving God out. 

CONCLUSION. 

In summing up the line of our thoughts we 
recognize the fact that self-denial is the cost 
of success. Self-discipline is the prerequisite 
to usefulness. We secure teachers who shall 
advise as to what we shall deny ourselves, 
and who shall administer discipline. Athletes 
and scholars agree in this method of prep- 
aration. 

The burdens and deprivations of life are 
such conditions enforced. The denials and 
discipline we will not choose we are some- 
times compelled to bear. Rightly used, they 
increase our power. 

College life means a certain discipline, and 
the results tell. Life is a broader college, 



INSPIRED TO INSPIRE 151) 

whose instruction makes larger, stronger men. 
Whatever God orders or permits leads to the 
same results. The true scholar is inspired by 
what he has learned ; so in the larger life they 
w^ho have profited by the severest lessons of 
divine ordering or permission are the most 
useful. 

God needs inspired men and women. It is 
as needful that men shall be inspired to teach 
the inspired Book of God as it is to have the 
Book of God to teach. 

The Bible itself is the best evidence that 
God inspires men other than those who were 
to make up the sacred writings. Who was 
the friend of God, the father of the faithful ? 
And yet Abraham, thus distinguished, has 
not left us a single chapter. Take the whole 
history of Joseph, the incarnation of purity. 
To what scriptural character has there ever 
been given a diviner insight than to him? 
What life can we hold higher for a model? 
And yet this God-inspired man, this model 
for all ages, has not left a single line of his 



160 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

own writing upon either the shafts of Egypt 
or the pages of the sacred Word. Look at 
Jacob gaining such power with God that even 
his old deceitful nature became so changed as 
to require for him the better name of Israel ; 
and yet even Israel never penned a line of 
Scripture. Where is there a single line writ- 
ten by that magnificent prophet of reform, 
Elijah ? Where is there a Gospel according 
to Thomas? And yet he ranks first among 
the discoverers of the real nature of Christ. 

Were not Abraham and Joseph and Israel 
in their living as truly inspired of God as was 
Moses, who recorded their history? Was a 
God- given inspiration lacking in Elijah, that 
example of greatest prophetic insight, while 
it was given to Samuel, who wrote his life? 
Was Thomas untouched by the Spirit of God 
when he broke forth in exclamation, *' My 
Lord and my God '' ? 

All through the Scriptures are the biog- 
raphies of men who walked with God ; their 
lives embalmed by other men commissioned 



INSPIRED TO INSPIRE 161 

as divine scribes. What is inspiration but 
being moved and animated by a supernatu- 
ral influence, and that supernatural influence 
direct from God ? 

A special divine illumination is as much 
required for understanding the Word as was 
demanded in writing it. The doctrine of 
prayer is really an emphasis to an inspiration 
direct from God. The world is to be saved 
by inspired men. Bezaleel was as truly 
divinely chosen for his art as was Isaiah 
chosen to teach. God needs and demands 
inspired men to carry on his transcendent 
work in the saving and redeeming of the 
world. 

Recall again among modern names that 
of Garrison, and the odds against him. The 
illustration will indicate the possible power 
in a strong, determined life. Two generations 
ago we were a slave nation. Our laws were 
in favor of the slave-driver. Our judges is- 
sued decrees against the slave. Our North- 
ern free States, so called, were open for the 



162 INSPIRED THROUGH SUFFERING 

sheriffs of slavery. The boast was openly 
made that the roll of a plantation's slaves 
would be called from Bunker Hill. Many 
churches were timid. Politicians were boldly 
on the side of the South. Merchants feared 
failure if agitation were kept up. Liberty was 
pinioned. 

At such a time Garrison began his life- 
work. His was the consciousness of strength 
that comes from being right and doing a 
divine work. He stood alone, yet not alone. 
He was mightier than all the forces opposing 
him. His decision was greater than those of 
the supreme bench. Beside him Presidents 
were almost pygmies. While he worked on 
Congresses kept compromising. He was 
stronger than all the laws they made, and 
would snap these apart like hempen cords 
singed with fire. 

He was a prophet indeed. He was doing 
God's work. He was inspired, and his in- 
spiration inspired others until a nation gave 
him honor. 



I 



INSPIRED TO INSPIRE 163 

In God's sight nothing that tends to help 
others is secular. Every-day duties are 
divine, Hke larger obligations. To do well 
our work we must '' be endued with power 
from on high.'' What is this but inspiration? 
We need the discipline of the schools. We 
imperatively require the divine help. We 
gain larger abilities by the severest discipHne. 
We are inspired by suffering to make life 
easier for others. This possibiHty makes life 
worth living, even when days would otherwise 
be dark and the years desolate. 

''Not to be ministered unto, but 
to minister." 



II 



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